Indonesia’s election commission (KPU) has announced the three candidates who will run to succeed President Joko Widodo as head of the world’s third-largest democracy in next year’s presidential election.
“Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar, Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka have been declared eligible as presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs for the simultaneous elections in 2024,” KPU Commissioner Idham Holik told a news conference on Monday.
Up to 205 million people will head to the polls on February 14 to vote for one of the candidates, confirmed after a series of eligibility and health screening checks, vying to be the Muslim-majority country’s next president.
Subianto, 72, has opened up a wide lead over his closest rival in opinion polls, despite controversy over his decision to pick Widodo’s son as his running mate.
A survey of 1,220 people, from October 27 to November 1 and released on Sunday by Indikator Politik Indonesia, showed 39.7 percent of respondents would vote for third-time presidential contender Subianto, while 30 percent would back the governing party’s Ganjar Pranowo.
Raka, the 36-year-old mayor of Surakarta city, was allowed to become Subianto’s running mate after the candidature of Chief Justice Anwar Usman, who is Widodo’s brother-in-law, was disqualified over an ethics violation.
Original from www.aljazeera.com rnrn