former president Megawati appears in court against the election of Widodo's son

Sukarno's daughter – leader of the PDI-P party, of which current President Joko Widodo is also a member – has requested permission from the Constitutional Court to declare as “amicus curiae” in the court case that could prevent Gibran Rakabuming Raka from exercising the position of vice president after the electoral victory he obtained together with General Prabowo Subianto.

Jakarta () – Former President Megawati Soekarnoputri yesterday filed an appeal before the Constitutional Court of Indonesia (MK) offering herself as “amicus curiae“, a function that allows you to express your opinion on a legal dispute, in this specific case over the results of the elections held in February. According to commentators, Megawati, leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), hopes to prevent that Gibran Rakabuming Raka accepts the position of vice president.

Gibran is the son of the current president Joko Widodo (belonging to the PDI-P), but in the elections he ran alongside General Prabowo Subianto, Minister of Defense accused of having committed a series of crimes against humanity during the repression of the independence uprisings. of East Timor in the '80s and '90s. Furthermore, Gibran, 36, was only able to run for office thanks to a modification of the electoral law that prevented those under 40 years of age from participating in an electoral competition. Despite this, the Prabowo-Gibran duo won the elections with a landslide victory, obtaining 58% of the votes, and should assume the positions of president and vice president respectively in October.

After the announcement of the election results, the other contenders (the couples Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud Md, supported by Megawati's PDI-P, and Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar) began a legal battle to disqualify Widodo's son, who was accuses of nepotism and abuse of power.

Four student organizations from different law schools in the country also organized demonstrations and submitted a request to the Constitutional Court to be able to play the role of amicus curiae: “We submitted the applications only to demonstrate our moral responsibility and our concern as law students for the presidential electoral process,” said a representative of the university students.

In the document presented to the Court by Hasto Kristiyanto, representative of the PDI-P, the eldest daughter of the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno, appeals to the ethical sense of the judges, since “the sentence expected from the MK could seriously affect the future of the State and the Nation.”

However, the lawyer for the Prabowo-Gibran duo, Habiburohmand, considers that Megawati's maneuver will not be able to “seriously influence the MK”, among other things because, in his opinion, the request to be amicus curiae is incorrect: “Megawati belongs to the PDI-P and comes from one of the two camps that competed in the elections, and therefore his request is not legitimate,” explained Habiburohmand.

Even a part of the Indonesian electorate considers that the judicial process is a “political scheme” by the candidates who lost the elections, and in recent months they had already supported the creation of a parliamentary commission to investigate the electoral process, an attempt that ended in failure due to the reluctance of the parties to open an investigation.