Political Discourse Analysis on the 2024 Election: Political Capability of Cawapres No.2 Through Linguistic Performance

Abstract

Ahead of the 2024 General Election, the Constitutional Court of Indonesia revised the Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections. Article 169 letter q states that the vice-presidential candidate must be "at least 40 (forty) years old or have/are currently holding a position elected through general elections, including regional head elections." This change was considered inappropriate and was only carried out in order to include Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the first son of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, as the second, out of three, vice presidential candidates (Calon Wakil Presiden – Cawapres). Thus, to justify his political capability, analysis of Cawapres No.2’s performance in the 2024 Vice Presidential Debate, needs to be done. This article uses Van Dijk's (2015) Political Discourse Analysis which applies three approaches; control of text and context of discourse, mind control, and discourses of domination through speech acts. Moreover, the linguistic construction used in the debate is analyzed in this paper through three aspects of Speech Act namely locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary (Austin, 1975). Thus, the suitability and readiness of Cawapres No.2 can be seen from the language perspective through Political Discourse Analysis approach.