Medan, Indonesia – As the vice presidential candidates took the stage for Indonesia’s second televised presidential debate on Friday, all eyes were on Gibran Rakabuming Raka – perhaps the most controversial vice presidential candidate in Indonesia’s history.

Gibran, the 36-year-old son of current Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, fended off accusations of inexperience and nepotism and dominated the stage despite facing more experienced candidates.

Observers generally concluded that Gibran’s performance far exceeded expectations.

“My overall impression was that all the doubters who thought Gibran was an ignorant lightweight were completely proven wrong,” Alexander Arifianto, a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore (RSIS), told Al Jazeera.

“He was well prepared for the debate and showed that he has an excellent feel for economic issues. Much better than his two opponents.”

Since announcing his candidacy in October, Gibran has faced a storm of controversy, including accusations of being a “Nepo baby” and perpetuating the dynastic politics that have long plagued Indonesian politics.

Since Gibran has no political experience other than a two-year term as mayor of the city of Surakarta in Central Java, he is accused of following in his father’s footsteps – Widodo was also mayor of Surakarta – and of lacking credibility Absent from the competing candidates were Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar, the deputy speaker of parliament, and Mahfud MD, a minister responsible for coordinating political, legal and security affairs.

Gibran’s candidacy was made easier by a controversial October ruling by Indonesia’s Constitutional Court that relaxed the minimum age requirement for presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

While the court generally stuck with the minimum age limit of 40, the justices introduced an exception that allows officials who are at least 35 years old to run if they have previously been elected to office – allowing Gibran to run before the Election to become Vice President of Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto election on February 14th.

The ruling was particularly controversial because the then head of the Constitutional Court, Anwar Usman, was Widodo’s brother-in-law.

Usman was removed from office after the Constitutional Court’s Ethics Commission found him guilty for failing to recuse himself from the decision, although the age requirement decision remained in place.

With questions swirling about the legitimacy of Gibran’s candidacy and his suitability for office, his debut on the debate stage Friday night was highly anticipated.

“Immediately: This debate was won by Gibran. So far, expectations of Gibran have been very low. Basically, Gibran was never tested. In the first presidential debate, he seemed like a curiosity: a high school student surrounded by experienced politicians and governors,” Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer at Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani in West Java, told Al Jazeera.

“In this debate, his performance was much better than the two people I expected to eat him for lunch, namely Mahfud MD and Muhaimin. It was clear that he was prepared, confident and in command of the material, perhaps having been thoroughly trained by his debate preparation team.”

The second of five televised debates and the first to feature the vice presidential candidates focused on the economy, including topics such as taxes, trade, budget management, infrastructure and urban planning.

Dandy Rafitrandi, an economist at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the questions asked by a panel of experts were quite specific and required each candidate to understand economic issues.

The candidates’ weak economic understanding was noticeable at times, said Rafitrandi, even when it came to financing state projects and programs.

“Gibran explained several programs, such as a free lunch program [for civil servants] worth 400 trillion Indonesian rupiah [$25.8bn]but did not explain the source of the funding,” Rafitrandi told Al Jazeera.

At another point during the debate, Muhaimin said that he and presidential candidate Anies Baswedan, the former governor of Jakarta, wanted to build 40 new cities across Indonesia to rival Jakarta – without explaining how they would be paid for.

The biggest focal point of the evening was the duel between the candidates Nusantara, Indonesia’s new capitalwhich is currently being built in the jungle of Kalimantan.

The plan led by Widodo calls for relocating Jakarta, which is overcrowded, choked by smog and sinking due to illegal groundwater extraction, at a cost expected to cost $1.3 billion.

The project has struggled to secure foreign investment to cover most of its high price tag and has only attracted local investors, something Mahfud Gibran questioned as he supported the plan.

Gibran responded that Mahfud could “Google” who was investing in the project and attacked Muhaimin for being “inconsistent” after previously supporting the venture.

Mahfud also previously supported Nusantara, and only Anies and Muhaimin said they would cancel the project if elected, saying the money could be better spent elsewhere in Kalimantan and other parts of the country.

Nusantara is not expected to be a deciding factor in the election. Some recent polls show Prabowo and Gibran with a 20-point lead over former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD.

“Gibran was the clear winner of the debate tonight. “It has set the bar high and it will be harder for both Anies and Ganjar teams to keep up with them, especially when it comes to economic and investment issues,” RSIS’s Arifianto said.

“Unfortunately, both Mahfud and Muhaimin are single-issue candidates who are only good for their issues [law and religious issues respectively] but not so well with others.”

However, not everyone was impressed with Gibran’s dynamic performance, saying she prioritized style over substance.

“He was more rehearsed compared to the other two candidates, which is likely to impress some voters. However, his responses lacked political substance and were based on a combination of slogans and facts,” Ian Wilson, a lecturer in political and security studies at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, told Al Jazeera.

But while Gibran may want to move away from the “Nepo baby” label, it may be difficult to completely shed his family’s image, Wilson added.

“Gibran has shown that despite attempts to brand himself as a fresh-thinking millennial, he is still his father’s son and reiterates his commitment to the continuation of Jokowi policies, such as the Nusantara capital project,” he said.