King Juli Antoni, Young PSI Politician, Former PDI-P Cadre

PSI politician Raja Juli Antoni. (Instagram @rajaantoni)

JAKARTA - Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) Raja Juli Antoni visited the Jakarta Presidential Palace on Wednesday 15 June. His arrival was just as a number of party leaders were having a banquet with President Joko Widodo.

It is said that King Juli will enter the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet to fill the ministerial position which has been reshuffled or Jokowi's reshuffle. So, who is King Juli?

King Juli is known to be an active young politician. He spent his teenage years organizing. It is recorded that the man born in Pekanbaru had served as the General Chair of the Central Leadership (PP) of the Muhammadiyah Student Association (IPM).

He has also held the trust of holding the position of Executive Director of the Maarif Institute which was founded by the former General Chairman of PP Muhammadiyah, Ahmad Syafii Maarif.

Medio 2015, Raja Juli ventured to run for the chairmanship of PP Muhammadiyah. However, the 44-year-old politician gave up his intentions in the midst of his candidacy. Not without reason, King Juli wanted to focus on carrying out his position as Secretary General of the PSI from a party which at that time was only his age.

However, PSI is not the first place anchored. PDI-P (PDIP) became King Juli's first party to study the dynamics of national politics.

His opportunity to be in the big party made by Megawati Soekarnoputri was not to be missed. Carrying the PDIP flag, King Juli stepped forward to run as a candidate for DPR members for the 2019-2024 period.

He ran for the constituency of West Java IX which includes Subang, Sumedang and Majalengka Regencies. But the result is beyond expectation. Raja Juli's vote ran aground at the bottom, losing out to his more senior party partners Pmaruarar Sirait and Tb Hasanuddin.

In the contest for the five-year democracy party, King Juli also actively supports the winning of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, Jokowi-Ma'ruf Amin. In the structure of winning the 2019 Presidential Election, King Juli Antoni was recorded as sitting in the Deputy Secretary of the Jokowi-Ma'ruf National Campaign Team (TKN).

While in the field of education, King Juli was recorded as having studied at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic Institute (IAIN) (UIN Jakarta) in 2001. He graduated with a thesis entitled "The Verses of Jihad: A Critical Study of the Interpretation of Jihad as a Holy War".

He continued his studies to take his master's degree at the University of Bradford UK faculty of The Department of Peace Studies.

Raja Juli finally finished his master's degree with a thesis entitled "The Conflict in Aceh: Searching for A Peaceful Conflict Resolution Process". He obtained this master's degree after receiving a Chevening Award scholarship in 2004.

His dream is in the world of higher education, he returned to continue his education to win a doctoral degree at the University of Queensland Australia faculty of the School of Political Science and International Studies. Through a scholarship, Raja Juli also completed his dissertation entitled "Religious Peacebuilders: The Role of Religion in Peacebuilding in Conflict Torn Society in Southeast Asia," with a specificity in the Mindanao and Maluku regions.