The 2018 Makassar mayoral election took place on 27 June 2018 as part of the simultaneous local elections. It was held to elect the mayor of

Makassar Makassar ( ), formerly Ujung Pandang ( ), is the capital of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, ...

and the deputy mayor.

Munafri Arifuddin Munafri Arifuddin (born 20 September 1975) is an Indonesian politician and businessman who is the mayor of Makassar, serving since February 2025. He is also the former CEO of the football club PSM Makassar and the current Director of PT Liga Ind ...

, who was supported by 10 from 11 political parties in the city's Regional People's Representative Council, was the only candidate in an

uncontested election An uncontested election is an election in which the winning candidate did not face a serious challenger. This often entails the number of candidates being the same as or fewer than the number of places available for election, meaning that all cand ...

. Incumbent mayor

Mohammad Ramdhan Pomanto Mohammad Ramdhan Pomanto, also known as Danny Pomanto, (born 30 January 1964) is an Indonesian politician who served as the mayor of Makassar, the fourth largest List of metropolitan areas in Indonesia#Extended Metro Areas, extended metropolitan ...

initially registered to run for a second term as an independent candidate, but his candidacy was later revoked by a

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

ruling. Despite running as a single candidate, Arifuddin, who was the CEO of local football club

PSM Makassar Persatuan Sepakbola Makassar ( 'Football Association of Makassar') commonly referred to as PSM Makassar, is an Indonesian professional football club based in Makassar, South Sulawesi that competes in Liga 1. PSM was founded in 1915 as , ma ...

and nephew of then-Indonesian vice president

Jusuf Kalla Muhammad Jusuf Kalla (; born 15 May 1942), commonly referred to by his initials JK, is an Indonesian politician and businessman who served as the 10th and 12th vice president of Indonesia, the only vice president in Indonesian history to serve tw ...

, lost the vote to an empty ballot (''kotak kosong''), forcing the election to be repeated in 2020 and for an acting mayor to be appointed by the

Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the i ...

. Although a lawsuit was brought to the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

, the appeal was rejected, making the election the first in Indonesian electoral history in which an empty ballot won.

Timeline

The KPU set a temporary voter count at 862,731 in March 2018, spread across 15 subdistricts. The voters voted at 2,765 polling stations. A budget of Rp 60 billion (US$4.35 million) was assigned for the election, of which 16.4 billion came from the 2017 budget and the rest from the 2018 fiscal year. Registration for party-backed candidates was opened between 8 and 10 January 2018, while independent candidates were required to register between 22 and 26 November 2017. The campaign period was from 15 February to 24 June, with a three-day

election silence Election blackout or election silence is the practice of banning political campaigning or media coverage of a general election, before or during that election. Often, the publication of opinion polls is illegal during this time. Operation In som ...

before voting on 27 June. The vote itself follows a

first past the post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

system. The candidates were assigned their ballot numbers on 13 February 2018.

Candidates

Munafri Arifuddin, a member of

Golkar The Party of Functional Groups (), often known by its abbreviation Golkar, is a Centre politics, centre to Centre-right politics, centre-right big tent secular nationalist political parties in Indonesia, political party in Indonesia. Founded in ...

and nephew of the then-Vice President

, was supported by 10 parties. Also the CEO of the

football club, he had promised to keep this position if elected. Arifuddin's running mate Rachmatika Dewi was a deputy speaker of the city council and the chief of Nasdem in Makassar. Although initially supported by some political parties,

registered with the KPU as an independent candidate, having collected 117,492 valid copies of ID cards out of the ~65,000 required as an independent candidate. Demokrat was the only party represented in the

People's Representative Council The House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia (, DPR-RI or simply DPR) is one of two elected chambers of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the national legislature of Indonesia. It is considered the lower house, while th ...

that officially supported him. Other parties declared their initial support to him, but withdrew later. His running mate Indira Mulyasari was the deputy speaker of the city council, although she resigned for the election. In February, the Munafri-Dewi pair sued the local KPU in order to cancel Pomanto's candidacy, citing a case in which Pomanto distributed smartphones while serving as the city's mayor. The South Sulawesi high court on national administration (''Pengadilan Tinggi Tata Usaha Negara'') on March 21 ordered the KPU to cancel Pomanto's candidacy. The election body then brought the case to the

, which upheld the PT TUN decision. Pomanto stated that he would continue pressing his case through the legal system. However, the electoral commission decided to disqualify him following a closed-door meeting, making the election an uncontested one. However, Arifuddin was still required to win a majority of the votes (voters could vote for an empty ballot) or the elections would be redone in 2020.

Polling

After nominations

Results

Quick count

Official

Aftermath

Following the announcement of the results, the Munafri-Dewi campaign team filed a lawsuit to the

, claiming "structured, systematic and massive cheating", accusing Pomanto of having interfered in favor of the "none of the above option" within his capacity as mayor, and demanding that the "none of the above" option/empty column be cancelled. In 10 August, the court ruled against the appeal, hence awarding "victory" for the none of the above option - the first in Indonesian electoral history. The repeat election was held in 2020, with Pomanto and Munafri both contesting the election with two other pairs of candidates. Pomanto would win the 2020 election with 41 percent of votes to secure a second term.

References

{{Indonesian local elections, 2018 Elections in South Sulawesi Makassar

Single-candidate elections