The Golkar Party has yet to decide on a running mate for its chairman and presidential candidate Aburizal Bakrie for next year’s election.
Golkar deputy chairman Agung Laksono said his party will wait for the results of the legislative election early next year, which he claimed would indicate Golkar’s strength and desired policy positions, before picking a running mate.
“We will wait for the results from the legislative election because the political map and anatomy will be clearer,” Agung, the coordinating minister for people’s welfare, said at the presidential office on Thursday.
Agung said Golkar was open to members from other parties to run as vice president, including Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo, a member of the rival Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
“We have no ideological barriers, it’s just a matter of interest at this point. The possibility for that is open, depending on the legislative [election] results,” Agung said.
The National Awakening Party (PKB) said it was unlikely to reach the likely 20 percent legislative election threshold needed to nominate its own candidate for president. Instead, it will seek to form a coalition.
“It has to be a coalition. To make the presidential election easy and effective, the number has to be limited to prevent all from running,” said PKB chairman Muhaimin Iskandar, the manpower and transmigration minister, also speaking from the presidential office.
Muhaimin said he agreed the presidential threshold should be set at 20 percent in order to strengthen the ruling coalition and the stability of the administration.
The minister said he understand that some political parties wanted to lower the presidential threshold but added that it was too close to the election to revise the law on the presidential threshold from 20 percent.
“Basically, PKB is not bound to any policy but right now the timing is too short to make a revision,” he said.
Yudi Syamhudi, from the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), predicted that Indonesia’s political landscape would change significantly next year. He said cadres from the Democratic Party would leave for other parties following disappointment that the party had failed to create social prosperity.
The Democratic Party leads a six-party coalition that includes Golkar and PKB, while PDI-P and Gerindra are among the three opposition parties in the legislature.
by:Hotman Siregar & Novy Lumanauw
