PDIP Secretary General Hasto Admits He Hasn't Met Gibran Rakabuming For A Few Months

Secretary General of the PDI-P (PDIP) Hasto Kristiyanto. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - PDI-P Secretary General Hasto Kristiyanto stated that he had not met face-to-face for several months with the Mayor of Surakarta who is also the eldest son of President Joko Widodo, Gibran Rakabuming Raka.

This was stated by Hasto when giving a statement on the sidelines of the agenda "Coordination Meeting for Legislative and Presidential Elections for the 2024 DPR RI and Regional Heads and Deputy Regional Heads throughout East Java" at a hotel in Surabaya, Saturday, October 14.

"My answer is the same as the President for several months, he has not met Gibran," said Hasto, as quoted by Antara.

Even though he hasn't seen each other for a long time, Hasto is still communicating with Gibran through a short message application. The communication between the two is only limited to the context of fellow PDI-P cadres.

He even admitted that this morning he had also sent videos related to the struggle to Gibran.

"I just communicate because it is important, communication among PDIP Perjuangan members," he said.

Hasto stated that he had never once discussed the name Prabowo Subianto, who is currently widely rumored to be collaborating with Gibran as his companion in the 2024 Presidential Election (Pilpres).

The Secretary General of the PDI-P also did not want to overreact to the news, nor was Gibran's younger brother and PSI General Chair Kaesang Pangarep with Prabowo.

According to him, the news of the closeness of President Joko Widodo's two sons to Prabowo is a common thing.

"Yes, it's okay, we just smile," he said.

Based on the schedule set by the Indonesian KPU, the registration of prospective presidential and vice presidential candidates is scheduled to start from October 19 to November 25, 2023.

As regulated in Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections (UU Pemilu), pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates are proposed by political parties or coalitions of political parties participating in the election who meet the requirements for obtaining seats of at least 20 percent of the total number of seats in the DPR or obtaining 25 percent of valid votes nationally in the previous election for members of the DPR.

Currently, there are 575 seats in parliament so that the pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates in the 2024 presidential election must have at least 115 seats in the DPR RI. It could also be that the candidate pairs are promoted by political parties or a combination of political parties participating in the 2019 Election with a total valid vote acquisition of at least 34,992,703 votes.