“He chose to resign for the greater interest of the nation, the state and the Indonesian people.”
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, in a televised statement on Thursday
Gibran Rakabuming Raka walked out of Indonesia’s parliament on Thursday without saying a word. He had just handed in his resignation as vice president: 39 years old, two years into a five-year term, a month after the country’s two highest courts found that his high school paperwork did not meet the requirements to run.
Call it a diploma story if you like. The sequence says it was also a negotiated exit. He offered to quit on Tuesday, saying he wanted to avoid a prolonged political controversy, gave the letter to President Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday, and filed it with parliament on Thursday, hours before the House was due to meet on a petition from more than 120 lawmakers seeking his impeachment. That petition would have opened a House committee inquiry into whether he violated the constitution by serving without the required credential. Now nobody has to answer that.
The timeline, assembled from the AP, ABC and Al Jazeera accounts:
- October 2023: the Constitutional Court carves out an exception to the age-40 floor for anyone who has held elected regional office. Gibran is 36.
- October 2026: the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court rule that his education documents do not meet election requirements.
- Tuesday, Nov. 10: Gibran offers to resign in a meeting with Prabowo.
- Wednesday, Nov. 11: he delivers the letter to the president, and 120 lawmakers from eight parties file the impeachment petition.
- Thursday, Nov. 12: he submits it to the People’s Consultative Assembly, and Prabowo accepts on television.
Start with 2023, because that is where his critics always start. Gibran was four years under the age floor when the court issued its contentious ruling. The chief justice then was Anwar Usman, President Joko Widodo’s brother-in-law, and the court’s own honorary council removed him as chief justice for failing to recuse himself. Gibran is Widodo’s eldest son. Prabowo made him his running mate and the ticket won.
Then the paper. Indonesian law requires a candidate to have finished senior high school or an equivalent, and because Gibran studied abroad he had to document one. The petitioners in the court cases say what he filed was not a graduation certificate but a supporting letter from the Education Ministry, built on an attendance certificate and transcript from UTS College in Sydney. The Constitutional Court found no compelling evidence he held the diploma. The Supreme Court ruled his equivalency certificate invalid.
What happens next is the part Indonesians do not vote on. A vice presidential vacancy triggers no election: the president nominates two candidates and the assembly picks one within 60 days. Anadolu Agency reported that Prabowo has 14 days to submit his two names. No other account we read carries that figure, so treat it as unconfirmed. Counting from Thursday, it would put the nominations at November 26 and the assembly’s decision by January 11.
Vedi Hadiz, a University of Melbourne professor, warned that “it’s possible the person he chooses, or who gets over the line, will become an internal rival,” and called Prabowo “on the defensive, if not on the retreat.” The resignation lands as senior police officers, including former chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo, widely seen as a Widodo ally, are under investigation over allegations they wiretapped the president. The diploma case appears unrelated, and nothing we found ties the two together.
Here is what we think. The courts did their job, late. The conflict of interest in 2023 is not a matter of opinion: the man who led the court was the candidate’s father’s brother-in-law, and he was removed for not stepping aside. Prabowo praised Gibran’s “courage, responsibility and statesmanship” for stepping down. That is how you close a file. The honest accounting was the House inquiry, with lawmakers on the record about what an invalid certificate means for a ticket that won with him on it, and the resignation ends it.
Indonesia’s last vice president reached the job through a court ruling and left it over his paperwork. The first test of the next one is whether anyone checks the paperwork before the vote instead of after.