Budi Gunawan: President's Support For The Regional Head Election Paslon Does Not Violate The Rules

Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs (Menko Polkam) Budi Gunawan said President Prabowo Subianto's support for one of the candidate pairs (paslon) for regional elections in Central Java did not violate the rules.

Budi explained that the endorsement of candidate pairs is commonplace, because each candidate must try to get support from all parties.

"If the question is whether it is permissible according to the rules or not, then the answer from the side of the rules that we see is that nothing has been violated," said the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, reported by ANTARA, Monday, November 11.

Budi melanjutkan di negara-negara yang membantu sistem demokrasi, dukungan Presiden terhadap pasangan calon tertentu dalam kontestasi pemilihan kepala daerah merupakan hal yang wajar.

"In other countries, we also see the same thing in a democratic country, for example, in the United States, the President openly endorses a certain candidate pair," said Budi Gunawan.

Apart from that, Budi continued that there are two attitudes of the President that should be in the spotlight, namely that the President does not direct the state structure to support one of the candidate pairs, and the President submits the final decision to the people as the owner of the vote in the 2024 Pilkada.

"He did not direct the structure of this country to move to win one of the candidate pairs, and left it entirely to the people who chose any candidate pair," said the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia.

Candidate for Governor of Central Java Ahmad Luthfi on Saturday (9/11) last week uploaded a video of about 5 minutes long on his Instagram account @ahmadluthfi_official which included a statement of Prabowo's support for his candidacy with Taj Yasin in the 2024 Central Java Pilkada.

"I believe the two right figures for Central Java are the brother of Police Commissioner General Ahmad Luthfi, someone who has served and served in Central Java for a long time, and also Gus Taj Yasin Maimoen's brother, the son of my teacher KH. Maimoen Zubair, who has also served in Central Java for a long time as deputy governor," Prabowo said in the video uploaded by Ahmad Luthfi.