The President's Polemic Joins Campaign, TKN Affirms Election Law Has Considered Ethical Aspects

JAKARTA - Secretary of the National Campaign Team (TKN) Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming, Nusron Wahid, emphasized that Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning Elections governing the president can carry out campaigns, has considered ethical aspects. Even the law has been agreed upon by the DPR and the government itself.

This was conveyed by Nusron in response to the assumption that whether or not a president is campaigning and taking sides, which is currently reaping polemics. "If the law is an agreement between the people and the government. And the people are also the result of the election process because the DPR that drafted it is the result of the election process, and at that time it is also the result of the government process," Nusron told reporters, Thursday, January 25. Therefore, Nusron is surprised if anyone questions the ethics of the president who has the right to support one of the particular candidate pairs and participates in campaigning.

The Golkar politician then brought up the Minister of Home Affairs, who at that time was the late Tjahjo Kumolo. Tjahjo is the minister of the PDIP envoy, while the vice president is Jusuf Kalla.

"In 2017, the Minister of Home Affairs, Mr. Tjahtjo Kumolo, the vice president, Mr. Jusuf Kalla. Does that mean that the person involved in the process of drafting the law is considered to have no ethics either?" asked Nusron.

Therefore, Nusron said, that in the process of making the law, the elements of ethics have been considered. So that the current polemic should no longer need to be extended.

"When it is written in the law, it means that the legislators have considered the elements appropriate or inappropriate, ethical or unethical," he continued. Previously, the spokesman for the Ganjar-Mahfud National Winning Team (TPN), Chico Hakim, admitted that by law the president could participate in the campaign.

"What Mr. Jokowi said is not legally wrong," Chico told reporters, Wednesday, January 24.

However, according to Chico, ethical aspects need to be considered and also considered. Moreover, in the 2024 presidential election there is one candidate pair who has a close relationship with President Jokowi, namely the Vice Presidential Candidate Number 2 Gibran Rakabuming Raka who is Jokowi's son.

"There is a kind of ethics and public opinion about nepotism and others, of course, it will get thicker, especially since the president campaigned for one of the candidate pairs who happened to have his biological son there," he said.