Airlangga Regarding The President May Campaign: That's Constitutional Right

Coordinating Minister For The Economy Airlangga Hartarto/DOK ANTARA

INDRAMAYU - Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said President Joko Widodo's statement regarding the president being allowed to participate in the campaign is a constitutional right.

Airlanggam conveyed this in response to Jokowi's statement regarding the president being allowed to campaign as long as he did not use state facilities.

"First, (it) the constitutional rights of the President and also citizens to be able to vote and may also be elected. So it is a constitutional right," said Coordinating Minister Airlangga in Indramayu, West Java, as reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, January 24.

Coordinating Minister Airlangga explained several Indonesian presidents in the previous period who were also members of the party.

According to the minister who is also the General Chair of the Golkar Party, political partiality is permissible based on the constitution.

"We know that since the various presidents were based on political parties, we talked about President Soekarno with PNI, President Suharto with the Golkar Party, Mrs. Megawati with PDI-P, Mr. Habibie Golkar, then Gus Dur PKB, Mr. SBY Democrat," he explained.

In addition, in the midst of the 2024 election campaign period, Airlangga assessed that President Jokowi's direction of support would be the same as in the direction of the Golkar Party.

"Obviously that (the direction of support) is no different from what the Golkar Party is fighting for," said Airlangga.

Previously, President Joko Widodo said that the president and minister had democratic and political rights that allowed them to participate in the election campaign as long as they did not use state facilities.

Jokowi said this was in response to a number of ministers of the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet who entered as a successful team to support the presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs participating in the 2024 presidential election.

"The rights of democracy, political rights, everyone. Every minister is the same, the most important thing is that the president can campaign, you can take sides. Yes," said Jokowi at Halim Perdanakusuma Air Base.

Jokowi explained that the positions of president and minister are public officials as well as political officials.

Therefore, according to him, campaign is the right of democracy and the political rights of every citizen, including the president and ministers.