JAKARTA: Indonesia’s upper house of parliament will pick the country’s new vice president on Dec 2, its speaker said on Friday, after the dramatic resignation of Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the president’s deputy and the son of his predecessor.
Gibran’s resignation this week, which analysts say could widen the gulf between President Prabowo Subianto and former president Joko Widodo, followed a month of increasing political pressure from lawmakers after Indonesia’s top courts ruled that he had inadequate education credentials to run for the job.
Speaker Ahmad Muzani said the upper house, which is tasked by law with appointing the new vice president, would now send a letter to Prabowo requesting that he submit two names for the job.
The house has also formed a team of 36 lawmakers to verify the candidates’ credentials, Muzani said. It was not immediately clear which names Prabowo would submit.
On Thursday, Gibran said his resignation was a personal decision and unrelated to issues pertaining to his education credentials.
POLITICAL TURBULENCE
Gibran, 39, was elected alongside Prabowo in the 2024 election. Critics accused his father, Widodo, better known as Jokowi, of meddling in the process by influencing a court decision that changed the election rules, enabling Gibran to stand.
Analysts believe Gibran’s resignation could stoke further political turbulence and lock Jokowi and Prabowo into a bitter rivalry.
Jokowi defeated Prabowo in two presidential elections, in 2014 and 2019. During Jokowi’s second term, he made Prabowo his defence minister and tacitly supported the latter’s 2024 presidential run.
On Thursday, however, both Jokowi and Gibran struck a conciliatory tone and said they would continue to support Prabowo.
Gibran, in a video address to volunteers shown by news channel Kompas TV, said he would not be in opposition even as an outsider to Prabowo’s administration.
“I only have one message: Please, inside or outside government, we still have to support the president,” he said.
Analysts said another sign of the gulf between Prabowo and Jokowi was last week’s police revelation of an inquiry into suspected illegal wiretapping by four senior police officials, including former police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who is widely seen as a Jokowi loyalist.
Police said on Thursday they had enough initial evidence to pursue treason charges against the four suspects for wiretapping Prabowo, other politicians, activists and journalists.
Reuters has been unable to reach the suspects for comment.