FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Ahok confirms he will wed 21-year-old girlfriend

Ahok confirms he will wed 21-year-old girlfriend

JAKARTA - A wedding is on the cards for former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.

Former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, who prefers to be known as “BTP” following his release from prison, met with the leader of Hanura party, Oesman Sapta Odang (OSO), on Friday evening.The meeting was recorded on camera and uploaded on OSO TV, a YouTube channel owned by OSO, and it quickly went viral as it answered a burning question; will there be a wedding soon?

After complimenting BTP on “looking younger”, OSO asked the former governor, “Is the rumor true that you’re getting married?” to which BTP replied, “Yes. Because my mother said ‘Hok, I cannot take care or live with you, I’m in my 70s. How long [do I have to take care of you]?”

“My mother also said ‘your wife should be my replacement to cook, make cakes and take care of you'. The last one didn’t want to,” he added. BTP said his mother had advised him to get married right away, before reaching the age of 55.

He confirmed his plans to marry Second Brig. Puput Nastiti Devi, a police officer. “Yes, it’s her. She has been helping [my mother] cook for a long time now.”

BTP told OSP that it all started when full police protection for his family was ordered by Gen. Tito Karnavian following the “411” rally in 2016. “I didn’t think that I would date a female police officer. That never entered my mind,” he said.

“A friend of mine came and said that I should marry somebody with 'the same palm lines'. My ex-wife, in Chinese beliefs, could not accept her luck and that is why we parted. It doesn’t mean [my future wife] has to have the same lines on her palms as I do, but it means that our fate is the same,” BTP said.

Read also: Marriage forms signed: Wedding bells for BTP and Puput?

Following this conversation with his friend BTP asked to meet Puput, then his wife’s aide, and to his surprise, the lines on their palms matched. He also mentioned that Puput came from a family of police officers.

Halfway into the interview with OSO, BTP invited Puput to join in and show her palms to the camera to compared them with his.

According to BTP, his relationship with Puput has led to an improvement in his mother’s health. “My mother is now healthier. Her cholesterol level is below 200,” he said.

“She knows that there will be somebody to take care of her son. She already trusts me,” Puput chimed in.

When asked whether she was of Chinese ancestry, Puput said she had no knowledge of any Chinese ethnicity, “I don’t know about that, all I know is that my whole family is Javanese, but yes, most of my family have fair skin and chubby cheeks."

Rumors about the impending marriage between BTP and Puput had been circulating weeks prior to his release. Both families denied the rumors, although City Council speaker Prasetio Edi Marsudi had confirmed the Feb. 15 wedding. “I will be their witness,” he said as quoted by tempo.co recently.

Basuki Tjahaja Purnama divorced his wife, Veronica Tan, in April 2018.

 

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