JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka offered to resign at a meeting on Tuesday with President Prabowo Subianto, a senior official said, as lawmakers consider a probe into whether he was eligible to stand in the 2024 election.
"The vice president expressed his intention to resign in light of the evolving situation," presidential spokesperson Prasetyo Hadi told reporters.
Prasetyo denied reports that Prabowo rejected Gibran's request, but stopped short of saying the president had accepted it.
The meeting came amid a widening political rift between Prabowo and Gibran's influential father, the popular two-term former President Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi.
Gibran helped Prabowo win the 2024 election by a huge margin, but some lawmakers are seeking to investigate whether insufficient education documents he submitted as a candidate disqualify him as vice president.
Later on Tuesday, Gibran told reporters Prabowo advised him to "fight" to prove his credentials. He made no mention of discussing his resignation.
"The president has become just like a father to me," Gibran said.
TENSION SIMMERS BETWEEN FORMER RIVALS
Gibran, 39, had kept a low profile as vice president and his appearances together with Prabowo have been infrequent.
But he has been thrust into the spotlight of late as tensions grow between the president and political titan Jokowi, who defeated Prabowo in the 2014 and 2019 elections before tacitly backing him as his successor.
Cracks widened last week following the arrest of three senior police officers, including a Jokowi ally recently moved from the post of national police chief, who are accused of illegal wiretapping, including of Prabowo. Reuters has been unable to contact the suspects.
The scandal was the latest in a series of headaches for Prabowo, whose approval rating has slumped in the past year from discontent over his big-spending populist policies.
Prabowo has also been battling to reassure investors amid concerns about policymaking unpredictability and a series of setbacks that have wreaked havoc on Indonesia's stock market and a slump in the value of its currency.
Lawmakers in parliament, which is overwhelmingly under the control of Prabowo's "big tent" coalition, are looking into launching an inquiry into Gibran's qualifications, which some analysts believe could be the first step towards his impeachment.
The issue follows rulings last month by the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court that the education documents he submitted did not meet election requirements.
Gibran said on Tuesday he would appeal the Supreme Court ruling.
CAREER OF CONTROVERSY
Gibran's nascent political career has been plagued by controversy since the Constitutional Court in 2023 cleared him to run in the election, despite him not meeting a minimum age requirement of 40 for presidential or vice presidential candidates.
The ruling sparked a public outcry as the court's chief justice was Gibran's uncle, who was later found guilty by an ethics panel of a conflict of interest.
Gibran's inclusion on Prabowo's election ticket was widely seen as a quid pro quo, where Prabowo could capitalise on the huge popularity of Jokowi, who in turn would retain political influence and see his legacy protected.
But the relationship between Prabowo and Jokowi has since unravelled, with Jokowi loyalists sacked or reassigned in administration shake-ups since 2025 and the former president unhappy, according to sources, that Gibran was not being supported during recent legal battles.
