Gibran Rakabuming Raka (born 1 October 1987) is an Indonesian politician and businessman who is currently serving as the Mayor of Surakarta. He is the eldest child of the seventh

Indonesian president The President of the Republic of Indonesia ( id, Presiden Republik Indonesia) is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Indonesia. The president leads the executive branch of the Indonesian government and is ...

Joko Widodo.

Early life and education

Gibran was born in Surakarta, Central Java, on 1 October 1987, as the first child of Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Iriana. Gibran completed his first nine years of education in Indonesia, before moving to

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

where he studied at Orchid Park Secondary School. He obtained his bachelor degree from

Management Development Institute of Singapore The Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS), founded in 1956, is the oldest non-profit vocational university for lifelong learning in Singapore. It offers a variety of Academic degree, degree programs such as business management, eng ...

Career

Business career

In 2010, Gibran founded Chilli Pari, a

catering Catering is the business of providing food service at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio. History of catering The earliest account of major services be ...

business based in Surakarta. According to Gibran, he was inspired to set up the company after noticing the lack of a catering service for a conference centre owned by his father, but was opposed by Jokowi who intended for Gibran to continue his furniture business. The company grew and became focused on providing services for wedding parties. Gibran then started Markobar, a martabak chain, in 2015, and the chain had 29 locations in Indonesia by 2017. Jokowi commented in 2017 that though he did not initially approve of Gibran's business, Gibran's company ended up being valued higher than his furniture company. Gibran's reported wealth, filed in 2020 as a prerequisite to run for office, was reported at Rp 22.1 billion.

Politics

In July 2019, Gibran was named a favourite candidate for the 2020 Surakarta mayoral election, his father's position before becoming

Governor of Jakarta The Jakarta Special Capital Region is administratively equal to a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. Instead of a mayor, the executive head of Jakarta is a governor. The governor of Jakarta is an elected politician who, alon ...

and later

President of Indonesia The President of the Republic of Indonesia ( id, Presiden Republik Indonesia) is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Indonesia. The president leads the executive branch of the Indonesian government and i ...

, according to a survey by Slamet Riyadi University based there. In September, Gibran registered as a member of

PDI-P The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle ( id, Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan, PDI-P) is an Indonesian political party, and the party of the current President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo. The PDI-P was founded and is currently led by Me ...

, the same political party as Jokowi, in order to run in the mayoral election. The party officially endorsed Gibran as their mayoral candidate in July 2020, pairing him with city council speaker Teguh Prakosa. All parties represented in the city council endorsed Gibran with the exception of the

Prosperous Justice Party The Prosperous Justice Party ( id, Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, sometimes called the Justice and Prosperity Party), frequently abbreviated to PKS, is an IslamistAl-Hamdi, Ridho. (2017). ''Moving towards a Normalised Path: Political Islam in Contempo ...

, potentially creating an

uncontested election An uncontested election is an election in which the number of candidates is the same as or fewer than the number of places available for election, so that all candidates are guaranteed to be elected. An uncontested single-winner election is one w ...

. Ultimately, the candidacy of Bagyo Wahyono, a tailor by profession, was approved on 6 September 2020. Gibran's candidacy was also challenged by the activist Halim HD, who seeks votes for the blank box instead of the well-connected candidates. In the election itself, Gibran with a comfortable margin after winning 86.53 percent of votes (225,451 votes). Gibran and his running mate Teguh Prakosa had spent nearly 30 times more to campaign for the election compared to Bagyo.

Personal life

Gibran married Selvi Ananda on 11 June 2015, and the couple had their first child, Jan Ethes Srinarendra, on 10 March 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibran Rakabuming Raka 1987 births Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle politicians Children of national leaders Javanese people 21st-century Indonesian businesspeople Living people Joko Widodo People from Surakarta Mayors of Surakarta