Claims Not To Violate Ethics, TKN Disbursed The Rules Allowing The President To Take Sides And Participate In Campaigns

Deputy Chairperson of TKN Habiburokhman and Deputy Commander of Alpha TKN, Fritz Siregar. (Nailin-VOI)

JAKARTA - The Prabowo-Gibran National Campaign Team (TKN) agreed with President Joko Widodo (Jokowi)'s statement that the president may campaign and side with one of the candidate pairs (paslon) in the 2024 presidential election contestation.

TKN emphasized that no ethics and rules were violated by the president if he wanted to campaign for certain candidate pairs. "Constitutionally, legally and ethically this is indeed permissible," said Deputy Chairperson of TKN Prabowo-Gibran, Habiburokhman during a press conference at the TKN Media Center, Sriwijaya I Street, Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, Wednesday, January 24. Habiburokhman said that every citizen has human rights as regulated in Law on Human Rights article 23 to vote and have political beliefs. The constitution, he said, also regulates that the president may run for a second time. "If you run for yourself, you can do it for the second time, let alone campaign for a particular candidate," said Habiburokhman.

Wakil Komandan Alpha TKN Prabowo-Gibran, Fritz Edward Siregar lantas membeberkan sejumlah aturan yang membolehkan presiden ikut berkampanye. Fritz mengatakan, UU Nomor 7 Tahun 2017 memperbolehkan presiden untuk ikut kampanye. Hal itu diatur di dalam pasal 281 UU Pemilu, dan pembatasannya diatur dalam Pasal 300 dan Pasal 304. "Mau lebih detail lagi bagaimana pembatasannya, ada putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Nomor 10 tahun 2019. Dalam pertimbangan hukumnya sudah menjelaskan bahwa dalam melaksanakan kampanye, presiden tidak mempergunakan fasilitas negara, misalnya. Meskipun dalam UU pemilu diperbolehkan untuk alasan keamanan, fasilitas tersebut tetap melekat pada presiden," jelas Fritz. Kemudian, ada PP Nomor 53 Tahun 2003 mengenai aturan cuti dan kampanye bagi presiden serta menteri dan sebagainya."Artinya, apabila presiden ingin melakukan kampanye, itu diperbolehkan oleh UU pemilu, oleh putusan MK dan peraturan pemerintah, tinggal tergantung ke presiden apakah presiden akan mempergunakan hak yang diberikan UU atau tidak," pungkas Fritz.