Bawaslu Says Ganjar's Black-and-White Stripe Shirt Not a Violation of the Campaign

Ganjar Pranowo and his supporters at the Ganjar Pranowo Volunteer event at the 1 Muharram 1445H Gathering at Senayan, Jakarta, Wednesday 19 July. (doc. VOI)

JAKARTA - Bawaslu chairman Rahmat Bagja believes that the black and white shirt design worn by PDI Perjuangan (PDI-P) presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo is not a violation even though the campaign schedule has not yet started.

"Yes, it's okay, if the socialization doesn't invite people, it's not a problem," said Bagja at the Bawaslu Office, Tuesday, July 25, as reported by Antara.

According to him, there is no prohibition on the use of campaign clothes. Because campaign clothes are one of the rights of freedom to introduce yourself.

"The important thing is not to invite, please just go along. It's just a fashion, when we ban fashion, it will be harmful," he added.

He said campaign attributes were actually prohibited and included violations when voting day entered.

"For example, in the past, there were those who used boxes to enter the polling station (TPS), the boxes shouldn't be with color, okay, red. In Mr. Jokowi's era, then Mr. Prabowo was white, right, that's not allowed," explained Bagja.

Previously, on Wednesday, July 19, the future presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo said the black and white shirt design he was wearing was given by President Joko Widodo.

"Mr. Jokowi gave me the design for the shirt I'm wearing," he said after meeting hundreds of volunteer organizations at the Senayan Multipurpose Building, Jakarta, Wednesday.

Ganjar met supporting volunteers in the Gathering agenda for 1 Muharram 1445 H. Ganjar and the volunteers simultaneously wore shirts with black and white stripes.

Then, Ganjar gave a political speech for about 20 minutes, in front of thousands of volunteers from various volunteer organizations. Ganjar revealed that the shirt design was given by Jokowi at lunch together some time ago.

"He handed me a piece of paper. Mr. Ganjar, maybe this is good. I see, I go back and forth, I go back, what's good is the clothes I'm wearing," he explained.

According to Ganjar, there has been a major change in the national political landscape where the names of volunteers are then taken into account in the Indonesian political system.

"At least twice in the election, it turns out that volunteers are very decisive," he said.

Based on the schedule set by the General Elections Commission (KPU), the registration of presidential and vice presidential candidates is scheduled to start from October 19 to November 25, 2023.

As stipulated in Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections (Election Law), the presidential and vice-presidential candidate pairs are proposed by political parties or coalitions of political parties participating in the election that meet the requirements of obtaining seats of at least 20 percent of the total number of seats in the DPR or obtaining 25 percent of valid votes nationally in the previous election for members of the DPR.

Currently, there are 575 seats in parliament so the presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs in the 2024 presidential election must have the support of at least 115 seats in the DPR RI. It is also possible, the candidate pairs are carried by political parties or a combination of political parties participating in the 2019 Election with a minimum total of 34,992,703 valid votes.