Apriadi Gunawan, Jakarta/Medan – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's youngest son Edhie Baskoro and former president Megawati Soekarnoputri's daughter Puan Maharani look set to join the House of Representatives after winning legislative seats in their respective provinces, keeping the political legacy of their families alive.
It had long been anticipated both would eventually inherit their parent's current seats sometime in the future.
According to preliminary results from the Center for Electoral Reform, Edhie won a convincing victory for the Democratic Party with nearly 100,000 votes in his electoral district, and father's home province, of East Java. Puan meanwhile grabbed 240,000 votes to win a seat in Central Java, a stronghold of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) which her mother leads.
Refly Harun, a senior researcher from Cetro, said these candidates won their seats mainly due to their family's popularity and had not yet proved themselves professionally capable of governing their provinces.
"Maintaining a political dynasty is fine as long as the family members involved are politically professional, but most of them are new faces who have little or not experience," he said.
Apart from Edhie and Puan, Ahmad Mumtaz Rais, son of former chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Amien Rais, won a legislative seat as well.
PDI-P's Puti Guntur Soekarno, also Megawati's niece, won more than 17,500 votes in West Java while Megawati's husband Taufiq Kiemas, and his brother, Nazarudin Kiemas, will also likely secure the DPR seats of West Java and South Sumatra respectively.
Amien's son Ahmad and his brother Abdul Rozaq Rais are also expected to secure legislative seats in Central Java. Ahmad won nearly 42,000 votes while Abdul Rozaq won 22,800.
Both old and new faces from North Sumatra will feature in the fresh 560-member House throughout the next five years.
Lawyer cum actor Ruhut Sitompul, who represented the Democratic Party, was the first provincial winner in the legislative election in North Sumatra. Defeated gubernatorial candidate, Abdul Wahab Dalimunthe from the Golkar Party, will accompany 12 other Golkar cadres taking up new legislative seats at the House.
Meanwhile defeated gubernatorial candidate Tri Tamtomo and seasoned politicians Panda Nababan, Trimedya Panjaitan and Yasonna Laoly won seats in North Sumatra for the PDI-P.
As of May 5, the General Elections Commission (KPU) had counted 82.7 million votes from 59 electoral districts in 25 provinces.
According to the current results from the manual vote count, the PD is still leading with 20.71 percent of the votes, followed by the PDI-P with 14.89 percent and Golkar with 14.64 percent.
The Prosperous Justice Party was in fourth place with 8.26 percent, while the National Mandate Party occupied fifth place with nearly 6 percent of the total vote tally. (fmb)