Indonesia

The General Election Commission (KPU) has completed the rundown of official debates of the two pairs of Indonesian presidential and vice presidential candidates, with their first round of debate to take place on Jan 17.

Minister of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Menristekdikti) Mohamad Nasir was reluctant to comment on the suggestion made by the winning team of Prabowo Subianto - Sandiaga Uno regarding the presidential debate to be held on campus.

No winners were declared after last night's Jakarta gubernatorial election debate at the Bidakara Hotel in South Jakarta, at least not officially.

Djarot said in the last official debate on Wednesday night that he and Ahok would phone Anies and Sandiaga after voting day no matter what the result was.

During the debate, Jakartans will also be given the chance to ask questions of each candidate pair. The mechanism has not yet been revealed. The debate will be aired live by 13 TV stations.

Sumarno explained about the new format in the debate, it consider bringing people to have dialogue or ask questions directly to the candidates.

The debate focused on economic and social issues including citizens’ welfare, transportation and the environment. It was the first of three such events ahead of the 15 February gubernatorial election. The two other debates are scheduled for 27 January and 10 February 2017.

Police in Jakarta have heightened security ahead of the gubernatorial election debate on Friday night (13/01) at a TV station in South Jakarta, with a bomb squad sterilizing the studio to be used for the debate.

Hamdi Muluk, a political analyst from the University of Indonesia (UI), expects the upcoming debate, which will be organized by the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) next Friday, to become a kind of battleground stage where each candidate will try to show to the public how they will

The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) is encouraging the public to observe the first official debate next week so that they can directly compare the quality and competence of the three gubernatorial hopefuls.

Based on the tele-survey conducted by INDIKATOR, the Presidential Debates have no significant effect as majority of the public have determined their electoral preference. The gap between both candidates only differed by 0.9% as compared to the previous survey results.

Presidential candidate Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has taken the day prior to the second presidential debate to visit a local religious leader in Surakarta and pay his respects to his late father, Notomiharjo.