JAKARTA – Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has ruled against a petition calling for Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka to be disqualified from his position over questions about his education credentials.
“The request of the petitioners is declared inadmissible,” Constitutional Court Chief Justice Suhartoyo said on Oct 6.
A group of 12 petitioners, who included former deputy law minister Denny Indrayana, had argued that Gibran had not completed the equivalent of senior high school, a requirement for presidential and vice-presidential candidates in Indonesia. They thus asked the court to invalidate his candidacy as well as his subsequent inauguration as vice-president.
Gibran, 39, the eldest child of former president Joko Widodo, spent most of his secondary and tertiary education abroad, largely in Singapore and Australia.
He studied at Orchid Park Secondary School in Singapore from 2002 to 2004, and then at the University of Technology Sydney’s affiliated college Insearch from 2004 to 2007, Indonesia’s General Elections Commission (KPU) records show.
He continued his studies at the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) and completed a bachelor’s degree in marketing in 2010, which was awarded by Britain’s University of Bradford through its collaboration with MDIS.
While Gibran’s bachelor’s degree is not in dispute, the petitioners questioned whether the documents that Gibran submitted to KPU to prove he had completed senior high school were valid as he had submitted only a transcript and a certificate of attendance, not a high school diploma.
“If he cannot produce the mandatory documents proving completion of senior high school or an equivalent level of education – such as a photocopy of a diploma, a school-leaving certificate or another official statement legalised by the school – prospective vice-presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka should not have qualified as a vice-presidential candidate, let alone been designated as the elected vice-president or inaugurated as the vice-president of the Republic of Indonesia,” the petition said.
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