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The ailing Democratic Party continued to reach out to non-party members this week, naming a 2014 presidential candidate selection committee of mostly outsiders in an effort to bolster popularity and distance itself from a series of high-profile graft cases that have tainted the party’s once clean image.

The committee consists of seventeen people — seven party members and ten independents — who are tasked with selecting the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. The group met with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at his residence in Cikeas to begin the process on Monday.

Senior Democratic Party politicians said that the party's presidential primary would have never been held if former chairman Anas Urbaningrum was not charged with corruption.

According to Melanie Leimena Suharly, deputy chairman of Democratic Party supervisory body, the party was set to nominate Anas to run in the 2014 presidential election.

“He [Anas] fits all the requirements for the nomination. But everything changed following the graft allegations against him,” Melanie told reporters at the House of Representatives on Friday.

Aburizal Bakrie may not be the most popular presidential hopeful, but a new poll suggests the businessman and Golkar politician may at least be the among the most notorious ahead of the 2014 elections.

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.

Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo is still the man to beat in next year’s presidential election, according to the results of a survey released on Wednesday, a day after another poll omitted him from consideration.

Joko, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), was the candidate of choice for some 26 percent of the 1,200 respondents from 30 provinces covered in the United Data Center (PDB) poll.

Politicians in support of a proposed amendment that would loosen regulations on nominating presidential candidates say the recent decision to put the talks on hold will be detrimental to next year’s election.

The ailing Democratic Party is looking for a few good presidential candidates.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyno’s graft-striken party will open its ranks to qualified non-party members as possible candidates for the 2014 presidential election. The move, similar to a plan embraced by the Golkar Party in the early days of the Reform Era, has been widely seen as a way to boost the party’s popularity with an infusion of new members.

Former Army chief of staff Gen (ret) Pramono Edhie Wibowo has finally announced his decision to join the Democratic Party. Pramono, who attended the party’s annual National Coordinating Meeting (Rakornas),
said he was now a member of the party’s supervisory board.

“I became a party member four days ago,” he said as quoted bykompas.com on Saturday.

After struggling to hang on to its ministerial positions in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Cabinet, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) appeared to have resigned to the possibility that at least one of its Cabinet ministers would be dismissed.

After days of tough talking to Yudhoyono — asking the President to kick the PKS out of the ruling coalition — PKS spokesperson Mardani Ali Sera said on Monday that the party would defer any final decision taken by the President.