Indonesia’s Supreme Court has ruled that the “high school equivalency certificate” submitted by Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka when contesting the 2024 general election is invalid. This has reignited debate over whether he is eligible to remain in office or run in future elections.
The Supreme Court ruled last Friday (30 October) in favour of rights lawyer Subhan Palal in his lawsuit against Indonesia’s Ministry of Education, finding that the high school equivalency certificate submitted by Gibran was invalid. The court also granted Subhan’s request to have the certificate removed from the records.
The court had scheduled a press conference for Monday (2 November) morning to explain the ruling, but the full judgment had not been released by the scheduled time. Its legal and public relations office, which had yet to receive the judgment, announced that it had cancelled the press conference until further notice.
According to court documents, Subhan filed a lawsuit at the Jakarta State Administrative Court in February this year, seeking to invalidate the high school equivalency certificate issued to Gibran by the Ministry of Education in 2019. After the court declined to hear the case in May, Subhan appealed to the State Administrative High Court, which upheld the earlier decision in August. He then appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.
Under Indonesian election law, presidential and vice-presidential candidates must have at least a high school education or an equivalent qualification. When registering for the 2024 presidential and vice-presidential election, Gibran submitted a high school equivalency certificate issued by the Ministry of Education as proof of his educational qualifications.
The Supreme Court’s ruling does not automatically remove Gibran from office or bar him from contesting future elections, as removing a vice-president requires a constitutional process. However, the latest ruling has renewed heated debate over his eligibility to remain in office and run in future elections, and whether he could face impeachment.
Mahfud MD, a former coordinating minister and Constitutional Court justice who also ran for vice-president two years ago, called on law enforcement agencies on Saturday (31 October) to investigate whether there were criminal issues surrounding the equivalency certificate.
According to Indonesia’s Kompas newspaper, Mahfud said these issues could involve the procedures for issuing the certificate and the manipulation of regulations. He specifically called for investigations into the General Elections Commission and the Ministry of Education’s directorate general of Primary and Secondary Education.
Benny Kabur Harman, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party, which is part of the ruling coalition, said the ruling meant Gibran was ineligible to run for vice-president and that his authority as vice-president was therefore invalid.
Gibran’s educational qualifications have repeatedly brought his eligibility for office into question and led to legal challenges. In September this year, 12 parties, including former Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Denny Indrayana, also petitioned the Constitutional Court, arguing that Gibran had failed to submit proof of a high school equivalent qualification when running for vice-president in 2024, in breach of election law.
The Constitutional Court ruled last month that the documentation of educational qualifications Gibran submitted before the election was incomplete. However, it dismissed the petition because the petitioners were not presidential or vice-presidential candidates and therefore lacked standing to bring an election dispute.
Gibran, 39, is the eldest son of former Indonesian president Joko Widodo. He has yet to respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling, but said last month that he could not have attended institutions of higher learning without graduating from high school.
Gibran attended Orchid Park Secondary School in Singapore and the University of Technology Sydney’s Insearch college in Australia, before obtaining a bachelor’s degree at the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS).
Julia Lau, a principial fellow and coordinator of the Indonesia Studies Programme at Singapore’s ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, told Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB) that the voiding of Gibran’s high school equivalency certificate would create an “administrative difficulty”, raising questions about the process through which his candidacy was approved. Nevertheless, he had been elected and had already served two years as vice-president.
"Gibran himself may not wish to continue beyond this term, who knows. But at this point, he has not reached a juncture where he must step down. The president is silent. It can also cast doubt on both of them since they ran — and won — as a pair.”
Lau also said that while the ruling could hurt Gibran’s prospects of running for president in 2029, Joko’s family could still wield influence. Joko’s youngest son, Kaesang, currently leads the Indonesian Solidarity Party, while his son-in-law Bobby Naustion is the governor of North Sumatra.
