Candidates aligned with President Prabowo Subianto’s dominant governing coalition appear set for victory in Indonesia’s regional elections, even as the governorship of Jakarta seems likely to fall to the opposition.
In the country’s first simultaneous regional elections yesterday, tens of millions of Indonesians lined up at polling stations to choose hundreds of regional leaders, including 37 governors, 93 mayors, and 415 regents.
The elections posed an early political test for Prabowo and his sprawling Onward Indonesia Coalition (KIM), whose 13 constituent parties threw their collective weight behind candidates across the archipelago. Its main challenger was the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the only major party that has not joined Prabowo’s coalition.
As the Jakarta Post reported today, “quick count” results from various pollsters suggest President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, “appears on course to win the elections in several strategic regions like Central Java, East Java, and North Sumatra.”
In East Java, Indonesia’s most populous province, the KIM-backed gubernatorial candidate Khofifah Indar Parawansa holds a “decisive lead,” with samples from polling stations showing her gaining between 57.2 and 58.7 percent of the vote, well ahead of her PDI-P-backed rival and a third candidate from the National Awakening Party. Similarly, in West Java, the victory of the KIM-backed Dedi Mulyadi “seems assured” after securing around 62 percent of the vote, the Jakarta Globe reported.
In North Sumatra, Bobby Nasution, Jokowi’s son-in-law, is poised for victory over incumbent Edy Rahmayadi, a retired army general. According to preliminary vote counts by Indikator Politik Indonesia, Nasution, the former mayor of Medan, the North Sumatran provincial capital, has won 62.63 percent of the votes, compared to 37.37 percent for his opponent.
In Central Java, Ahmad Luthfi, a retired police general and Jokowi ally, who is running on a KIM ticket, appears on course to win the election by a wide margin against the PDI-P-backed Andika Perkasa, a former military commander. According to the Indonesian Survey Institute, quick count results show Luthfi leading decisively, with 59.38 percent of the vote.
A major exception to this trend is perhaps the country’s most important regional constituency: the capital Jakarta. Various quick counts show the PDI-P’s Pramono Anung is leading the contest to become the megacity’s next governor, with around 50 percent of the vote, ahead of KIM’s candidate Ridwan Kamil, who sits at just under 40 percent. The independent candidate Dharma Pongrekun has secured the remaining 10 percent. Jakarta is unique in being the only constituency in which the election will head into a run-off early next year if no candidate secures more than half the vote. As a result, the outstanding question is whether Pramono has succeeded in surmounting the threshold, as his campaign claims, or whether he will fall short, triggering a run-off election.
None of these quick-count figures are final, and may change by the time the official results are certified by the General Elections Commission. (Official results are due to be confirmed by December 16.) But the initial results, even except for a possible misstep in Jakarta, reflect the power of Indonesia’s new president and reinforce his ability to implement his ambitious domestic agenda, which includes free meals for schoolchildren and plans to achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
“From the standpoint of the Onward Indonesia Coalition (KIM),” the Jakarta Post wrote in an editorial, “the outcome of Wednesday’s balloting may not be a clean sweep, but it was enough for the ruling coalition to take a victory lap, knowing that the balance of power remains tipped in their favor and that there is little not in their control.”
In particular, the results also attest to the potency of the political partnership that has been established between Prabowo and his predecessor. This became apparent during Jokowi’s last two years in office, when he gradually distanced himself from the PDI-P, the party that nominated him as its presidential candidate in 2014 and 2019. While Jokowi refrained from explicitly anointing Prabowo as his preferred successor ahead of the presidential election in February, he refused to endorse the PDI-P’s candidate Ganjar Pranowo. Jokowi’s preference became clear in October 2023, however, when his eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, was appointed as Prabowo’s vice-presidential running-mate. Gibran and Prabowo went on to win a decisive victory and were sworn into office last month.
Ahead of yesterday’s election, Jokowi also threw his support behind KIM-backed candidates in several key races. His influence appears to have been particularly determinative in Central Java, where Jokowi began his career as the mayor of the city of Solo. As well as being Jokowi’s home province, Central Java is a long-standing stronghold of the PDI-P, whose candidates have held the position of governor since 2003. At the last gubernatorial election in 2018, the PDI-P’s candidate Ganjar Pranowo won more than 58 percent of the vote. One analyst quoted by Channel News Asia suggested that the province’s voters had followed Jokowi away from the PDI-P and into Prabowo’s capacious tent. PDI-P chair Megawati Sukarnoputri instead blamed “the massive use of acting regional heads and police personnel rotations for electoral gains.”
If the provisional results of yesterday’s elections were good for the KIM, they were terrible for the PDI-P. This is especially the case given its heavy defeat at the presidential election, when its candidate Ganjar Pranowo came in last in a three-way race, winning just 16.47 percent of the vote. While remaining the largest party in parliament by a slim margin, the PDI-P is clearly facing lean times as it adjusts itself to the unfamiliar role of opposition to a nearly hegemonic coalition.
In response to the loss, the PDI-P’s Megawati urged the party’s members and supporters to remain steadfast. “To all PDI-P members and the Indonesian people, I urge you to never fear speaking the truth,” she said. “PDI-P will never tire of fighting for justice and opposing all forms of intimidation by those in power.”