Amien Rais Not Interested In Running For The 2024 Presidential Election

Screenshot of Amien Rais on the Youtube account of Amien Rais Official

JAKARTA - The chairman of the Suro Assembly of the Ummat Party, Amien Rais, has confirmed that he has no intention of running in the 2024 Presidential Election. He is not interested in participating in the contest. "Oh no, no, I don't want to," Amien said in Bengkulu, Thursday, answering questions related to this matter. Meanwhile, on that occasion he also criticized the 20 percent Presidential Threshold (PT) regulation which he considered shackled and created an oligarchy.

For this reason, his party sued Article 222 of Law Number 7 of 2017 to the Constitutional Court.

"Article 222 of Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning Elections is no longer relevant to be applied at this time," he said. According to Amien, the 20 percent threshold for presidential nominations eliminates constitutional rights. For example, proposing presidential candidates to discriminate against small political parties that do not have a position of 20 percent. For this reason, according to him, a Presidential Threshold of zero percent can be an alternative so that new presidential candidates emerge and do not shackle candidates in big political parties and avoid oligarchy.

Meanwhile, Article 222 of Law Number 7 of 2017 stipulates that candidates participating in the presidential election must be carried by a political party or coalition of political parties who meet the requirements for obtaining seats of at least 20 percent of the total seats in the People's Representative Council (DPR) or obtaining 25 percent. of valid votes nationally in the previous DPR election.