There's Scepticism In The Lunch

JAKARTA - The advancement of Gibran Rakabuming Raka as vice presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto will get support from Jokowi as his parents. In a democratic world, things like this are very common. However, as president, Jokowi must be able to guarantee the neutrality of the ranks under him even though his son is one of the candidates for vice president.

Jokowi's political support may have been confirmed to elect the Prabowo - Gibran pair in the 2024 presidential election. As a politician who started his political career from below and always won in every contest, Jokowi certainly has a difficult strategy to guess by his political opponents.

One of them is by inviting three eightth presidential candidates to have lunch together at the palace. Various political perceptions of the meeting were born immediately even though Jokowi had explained that he as president would be neutral and impartial to one of the candidate pairs (paslon). In the lunch, Anies Baswedan's sitting position opposite Jokowi seemed to reinforce the opinion of the Amin pair being Jokowi's anti-testa.

Meanwhile, the sitting position of Prabowo Subianto on the left and Ganjar Pranowo on the right seemed to hint at these two presidential candidates as if they were people from Jokowi. But for those who criticize, Jokowi's meeting with the three presidential candidates is part of political pleasantries.

Director of the Indonesian Research Institute Dian Permata said the issue of sitting with presidential candidates who were invited to lunch together at the palace actually gave a special message to Ganjar Pranowo and Prabowo Subianto that Jokowi was very concerned about Anies Baswedan. This is based on Anies Baswedan's sitting position which is right in front of Jokowi.

"In yesterday's lunch meeting, the message given apart from normatives that are already known to the public, Jokowi seems to want to emphasize that he is currently still in the position of head of state in front of the three candidates," Dian Permata told VOI by telephone, Tuesday, October 31.

Another political message from Jokowi as head of state to Anies seemed to emphasize that he did not interfere with the nomination process and registration of candidate pairs Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar. Of course, the Indonesian people will not forget the'durian card' case which is strongly suspected of involving Muhaimin Iskandar, who is currently the vice presidential candidate of Anies Baswedan.

"Jokowi seems to want to remind Anies Baswedan that he as head of state does not want to interfere even though the KPK is directly below him. At the same time, he emphasized to Anies that he still received full attention from Jokowi even though he was said to be anti-testing," he told VOI.

The sitting position of Ganjar on Jokowi's right as if he wanted to signal that support would still be given fully to the candidate pairs supported by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP). The sign that Jokowi's support did not fade to Ganjar as a representative of the PDIP was strengthened by the absence of the leadership of a state institution from a party bearing the symbol of a white-nosed bull that was replaced or shifted to yesterday's cabinet resuuffle.

Dian said that the seventh president was a strategic expert. He reasoned that everything can be seen from the sequence of political events in the last two years. And finally, one of Jokowi's political strategies can be seen in the Constitutional Court's decision which seems to support and pass Gibran Rakabuming Raka as a candidate for vice president from Prabowo Subianto.

"In the Constitutional Court's decision, it was initially rejected by the age of the vice presidential candidate under 40 years, but at the end, the age limit was granted by adding the conditions as long as they had occupied the regional head position. And all people in Indonesia were hit by a prank, right? Even though yesterday's victory was only 55 percent and lost to SBY which was up to 67 percent, but in terms of strategy, Jokowi is good," said Dian gem.

A VOI source at the palace said Jokowi's lunch meeting with three presidential candidates also indicated that currently he is still in full power as head of state and asked the three presidential candidates to continue his work program for Indonesia ahead after stepping down in October 2024.

"The meeting emphasized to the three candidates to continue the legacy of work programs to build Indonesia even more advanced in the future," said the source.

The source said that there should be no mistake reading Jokowi's political steps. Although Jokowi will later support the candidate pair Prabowo - Gibran, it does not mean that the candidate pair must be won. "Gibran is being prepared to become the Governor of DKI. Basically, Jokowi is a businessman, and his mindset rather than sowing two is better to sow three, right," he said.

"Once again, don't read wrongly. The condition of the state after the Constitutional Court's decision which raises allegations of nepotism and collusion that have the potential to disrupt democratic parties is guaranteed not to happen. Everything is still in accordance with Jokowi's plans and controls. The goal is one to carry out all work programs that are currently in progress, "said the source.

Politician from the Prosperous Justice Party, Mardani Ali Sera, revealed that Jokowi's meeting with the three presidential candidates for lunch at the palace was very natural if anyone considered Jokowi's clean-up action on the election stage before stepping down.

"Something natural if someone thinks that the meeting is a dish washing action, after the Constitutional Court's decision smooths his son to become a vice presidential candidate. Maybe he wants to clean his image of being a statesman," he said in a written statement received by VOI, Wednesday, November 1.

However, as soon as the chairman of the PKS DPP invited the public to remain kind and witness together Jokowi's next steps, especially in his neutrality as a statesman.

"We will only witness his neutrality together, in this case the attitude of the apparatus, the use of the budget, statements from a policy and all existing state apparatus, whether to be deployed to win a certain pair of candidates," he said.

Chairman of the Partai Kebangkitan Nusantara Anas Urbaningrum also spoke out on social media accounts about Jokowi's lunch meeting with the three presidential candidates at the palace. According to Anas, there was skepticism in the meeting to eat at the palace.

"There is skepticism about seeing this as just a beautiful front stage. It is natural and certainly has an argument basis. However, Pak Jokowi's'maksi diplomacy' still presents facilities for relaxation. At least it is quite symbolically strong," he said.