Gerindra Anniversary, A Test at the Peak of Victory

The term of office for the Gerindra Party's leadership will only end in six months, but an extraordinary congress to elect the chairman has already been held. In the National Leadership Meeting held on Thursday morning (13/2/2025) at Prabowo Subianto's residence complex in Hambalang, West Java, all central, regional, and branch administrators of Gerindra unanimously requested the homeowner to lead them again. The founder of Gerindra, who is now the 8th President of Indonesia, did not refuse; he agreed to be appointed as the chairman and also the chairman of the party's advisory board for the fourth time.

Although he himself founded Gerindra, Prabowo was not the first chairman of the political party (parpol) established on February 6, 2008. Prabowo only became the highest leader in the administration after Gerindra participated in the 2009 and 2014 elections under the leadership of Suhardi, a forestry academic. For the first six years, Prabowo served as chairman of the advisory board until he was asked to continue Suhardi's leadership who passed away in 2014.

Therefore, since 2014, Prabowo has served as the General Chairman as well as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Gerindra for three terms. After continuing Suhardi's administration throughout 2014-2015, he was reappointed as the general chairman and chairman of the board of trustees through the Extraordinary Congress (KLB) of Gerindra in April 2015, and then the subsequent KLB of Gerindra in August 2020. According to the party's Articles of Association/Bylaws (AD/ART), the term of office lasts for five years, so Prabowo and his administration's tenure will end in August 2025.

However, at the National Leadership Meeting last Thursday, all central, regional, and branch administrators of Gerindra unanimously proposed that the forum be changed to an Extraordinary Congress to reappoint Prabowo as their leader. No internal regulations were violated, considering that Gerindra's Articles of Association and Bylaws do not specify the exact date and month of the end of the administration, but only the year. From period to period, the appointment of the party's chairman has never fallen in the same month.

Not only was he reappointed as the highest leader of the party, but the Extraordinary Congress in Hambalang also requested Prabowo's willingness to be nominated again as a presidential candidate in the 2029 Presidential Election. This request emerged less than four months into Prabowo's administration, who was inaugurated as the 8th President of the Republic of Indonesia on October 20, 2024.

"We believe that the improvements and welfare enhancements through pro-people programs by President Prabowo must be continued. Thus, the improvements in welfare and the economic betterment of the people and the country can be felt more maximally," stated the Secretary General of Gerindra, Ahmad Muzani, on Thursday, regarding his party's consideration to reappoint Prabowo as the chairman and nominate him in the 2029 Presidential Election.

Under the leadership of Prabowo, Gerindra has developed into one of the largest parties post-Reformation 1998. Entering its 16th year in 2024, Gerindra successfully brought Prabowo to become the elected President. Prabowo, paired with Gibran Rakabuming Raka, won the 2024 Presidential Election, which was contested by three candidate pairs in a single round.

The victory was achieved after repeated failures. Prabowo lost twice to Joko Widodo, the 7th President of the Republic of Indonesia who is also Gibran's father, in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections. Previously, in the 2009 presidential election, Prabowo had also run as a vice presidential candidate to accompany the PDI-P General Chairperson and the 5th President of the Republic of Indonesia Megawati Soekarnoputri, but lost to the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Budiono pair.

Not only did it lead Prabowo to become President, from period to period Gerindra's vote acquisition and seats in the DPR also continued to increase.

In the 2009 Election when it first participated in the election, Gerindra won 26 seats, then shot up to 73 seats in the 2014 Election, and won 78 seats in the 2019 Election. Coinciding with the victory in the Presidential Election, Gerindra's seat gain in the 2024 Election also increased again to 86 seats.

Although the trend of its vote and seat acquisition continues to rise, Gerindra has never been a winning party in an election. The latest achievement placed Gerindra in third place after the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Golkar Party, which were the first and second winners of the most votes and seats in the 2024 Election.

However, Gerindra's reputation continues to rise. Referring to the results of a survey by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) on January 20-28, 2025, Gerindra's electability rate reached 38.1 percent or the highest among other political parties participating in the 2024 Election. The distance between Gerindra's electability and PDI-P and Golkar is also wide. Golkar is in second place with an electability of 10.2 percent, followed by PDI-P in third place with an electability rate of 9.3 percent.

"We do not deny that Mr. Prabowo's character is very important for the electability of the Gerindra Party," said Gerindra Daily Chair Sufmi Dasco Ahmad when contacted, Thursday.

However, he emphasized, the party continues to conduct cadre formation and create a number of mechanisms to achieve the target of increasing votes and seats in each election. One of them is by strictly selecting the leadership quality of legislative candidates (caleg) who will advance from Gerindra. In addition, Gerindra also prioritizes legislative candidates from cadres rather than people who want to enter the party only with the strength of financial capital.

"We prioritize the quality of legislative candidates, so we don't just take legislative candidates. Actually, many from outside want to enter (parliament) through Gerindra, but we prioritize internal cadres. Even if there are from outside, we consider their quality," said Dasco.

The party, he continued, also seeks to maintain public trust by highlighting the accountability of party financial management. Party funds obtained from both the state and donations from other parties are managed transparently and accountably.

This was recorded in the Transparency International Indonesia (TII) report in 2023 which gave Gerindra the highest score compared to other political parties in terms of financial openness. Not only that, Gerindra also received the most informative political party award in the 2024 Public Information Openness Award held by the Central Information Commission (KIP).

"We also maintain public trust. Being close to the community is the most important thing for the Gerindra Party, so we also create programs that directly (touch) the community," said Dasco.

With these steps, the Deputy Speaker of the DPR admitted that Gerindra has not been able to win the election. However, all of that will still be continued and strengthened. Moreover, in 2024, Gerindra's main focus is to win the presidential election, not the legislative election.

"For 2024, we are indeed focusing more on the presidential election. Then the result, even though Gerindra did not get the number one position, in the presidential election we became the winner," he said.

Postdoctoral Researcher at The Atma Jaya Institute for Advance Research, Unika Atma Jaya, Yoes C Kenawas, said that Gerindra's achievements over the past 17 years need to be appreciated. This is because not all political parties that were established after the reformation can consistently position themselves at the top of the party that passed into parliament, including delivering their cadres to become President. Several political parties are actually stagnant in the lower middle and lower boards. In fact, there are also parties that have existed since the New Order era that have now been eliminated from the DPR.

This achievement, said Yoes, is inseparable from the process of party institutionalization and increasingly strong cadre formation. In recent years, Gerindra has been actively recruiting young cadres and placing them in significant roles, both in the party and the DPR. Now, along with the formation of the Prabowo-Gibran government, a number of Gerindra cadres have also become ministers and deputy ministers.

"But what cannot be denied is Prabowo's patronage which is also strong in Gerindra. Because, the people (young Gerindra cadres) who are now playing a role are people closest to Prabowo. So, the merit system that is applied is actually still thin, the patronage factor is actually still strong," he said.

For example, Foreign Minister Sugiono, State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi, and Deputy Minister of Agriculture Sudaryono are alumni of Taruna Nusantara High School, which has long been known as Prabowo's "ideological children". Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Finance Thomas Djiwandono is Prabowo's nephew. Likewise, Budisatrio Djiwandono, who is now the Chairman of the Gerindra Party Faction in the DPR and also the Chairman of Commission I of the DPR, and Rahayu Saraswati Djojohadikusumo, who is the Deputy Chairman of Commission VIII of the DPR, is also Prabowo's nephew.

Therefore, according to Yoes, the institutionalization and cadre formation carried out by Gerindra have not been tested to be able to free the party from Prabowo's patronage. There has never been an internal contest to compete for the general chairman's seat. The party has also never gone through a period without Prabowo's leadership, so there has never been a test of the solidarity between factions in the party. Because, since its inception, Gerindra has indeed functioned to be Prabowo's political vehicle to become President.

Apart from the unprecedented internal test, Gerindra cannot avoid many external tests as the ruling party. Reflecting on the journey of previous ruling political parties, their reputations generally collapsed due to corruption cases involving cadres while in power.

In addition, in the last five periods, the newly ruling party also tends to stutter in carrying out government functions. Gerindra, which has only had five years of experience in government in 2019-2024, must ensure that all programs are made for the people, are implemented well, and do not cause social and political instability. Because, this is directly correlated with their electability in the next five years.

Over the past 17 years, Gerindra has been able to build itself into one of the largest parties and achieve victory after victory. Now, when its reputation and public trust are almost at their peak, can Gerindra pass various tests to survive?

Happy birthday, Gerindra Party!