JAKARTA (The Thursday Times) — Indonesia’s Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka has resigned, an aide said on Wednesday, after the country’s top courts found that the school certificate he used to run for office was not valid and lawmakers moved to begin impeachment proceedings against him.
Budi Arie Setiadi, an aide to Gibran and head of a volunteer group aligned with his father, former president Joko Widodo, said the 39-year-old had handed his resignation letter to President Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday. There was no official word on whether Prabowo had accepted it, although some reports said he had.
Two sources in parliament were quoted as saying the letter would be submitted to the legislature on Thursday morning. Under Indonesia’s constitution, the People’s Consultative Assembly chooses a new vice-president from two candidates put forward by the president.
A certificate at the centre
Indonesian law requires a vice-president to have completed senior high school or its equivalent. Gibran, who studied in Singapore and Australia, used an Indonesian equivalence certificate to meet that rule when he registered as Prabowo’s running mate in October 2023.
On October 6, the Constitutional Court found that his documents did not amount to a high-school qualification, though it threw out the petition against him on legal grounds. The ruling set off protests across the country. On October 30, the Supreme Court annulled the certificate itself, saying there was no evidence of a foreign diploma that could serve as the basis for it.
On Wednesday, 120 lawmakers from all eight parties in the House of Representatives signed a motion that was the first formal step towards impeachment. It was due to be approved on Thursday. Gibran had met Prabowo for two and a half hours on Tuesday and expressed his wish to step down, according to the presidential spokesman, Prasetyo Hadi. Hours later, Gibran told reporters that Prabowo, whom he described as being like “a father”, had advised him to keep fighting the rulings in court.
A fraying alliance
Gibran’s rise was contested from the start. He was 36 when candidates registered in 2023, below the legal minimum of 40, and became eligible only after a 5-4 Constitutional Court ruling led by the then chief justice, Anwar Usman, who is his uncle by marriage. Anwar was later removed as chief justice for failing to recuse himself.
The Prabowo-Gibran ticket won the 2024 election with 58.8% of the vote, carried by Joko Widodo’s popularity. Since then, relations between Prabowo and his predecessor have cooled. Prabowo has put little effort into Nusantara, the new capital that was Widodo’s flagship project, and has moved many Widodo loyalists out of key posts.
Last week, the presidential chief of staff, Listyo Sigit Prabowo, a former police chief seen as close to Widodo, was arrested on suspicion of wiretapping the president and dismissed a day later. On Monday, three cabinet ministers quit the party led by Kaesang Pangarep, Widodo’s youngest son.
Gibran’s departure leaves Prabowo, a former general, to pick a new deputy at a time when his government’s approval ratings have been falling.
