Three Presidential Tickets, Analyst Predicts

Ady TD Achmad, Jazmi Adlan Bohari
 
The legislative general electionheld last Wednesday has delivered an unpredictable outcome with initial counting indicating that no single political party has dominated the voting. As a result, a coalition government between a number of political parties will have to formed to be able to nominate a presidential candidate.
 
Due to this outcome, Heri Budianto, Executive Director at the Political Communications Institute (PolcoMM), is predicting that the necessity for acoalition will determine the direction of each party. Communications between the parties will also influence future coalitions.
 
“There are three big groups in the upcoming presidential election, and each of these groups will be led by the PDIP, Golkar, and Gerindra,” said Mr. Budianto, referring to the top three political parties during a press conference at Mercu Buana University in Jakarta last Friday.
 
PDIP, which has been declared the winner of the election based on current counting, has been approached by the National Democrats (Nasdem), a new player in Indonesian politics, and the National Mandate Party (PAN), a veteran political party.
 
This approach was affirmed by Rokhmin Dahuri, Deputy Chairman of PDIP. He emphasized that PDIP wants to have acoalition with a party thathas similar visionsand missions. For instance, how to improveeconomic growth for the welfare of the people.
 
Mr. Budianto further explained that the Democratic Party as the winner of 2009 election, is having difficulty cooperatingwith the PDIP. This is due to the tensepolitical relationsbetween Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, General Chairman of the Democratic Party, and Megawati Soekarnoputri, General Chairwoman of PDIP.
 
Similar to the Democrats, Mr. Budianto said that the runner up of this year’s election, the Functional Group Party (Golkar),will also face difficulties in establishinga coalition. This is due to the low level of votes obtained by Aburizal Bakrie, Golkar’s Chairman as its presidential candidate.
 
Mr. Budianto predicts that besides the potential groups that could be established by the top three political parties, there is also a possibility that Islamic-based political parties may form another coalition. This would add another ticket to the presidential election in July.
 
In response to the presidential ticket nominations, Imam Nahrawi, Secretary General of the National Awakening Party (PKB), said that his party has not discussedthe possibility ofacoalition. However, PKB has already initatied an assessment of the political communicationsbetweenother parties. Mr. Nahrawi only hopes that anycoalition will emphasize mutual commitment and be realistic in achieving targets.
 
“The internal coalition should be more solid. We’ll see how far this commitment goes,” he said.
 
Mr. Nahrawi added that the PKB is currently promotingtwo figures as presidential candidates, Rhoma Irama, a long-known musician with many followers, and Mahfud MD, former Chief Justice of the Consitutional Court. These candidates, according to Mr. Nahrawi, will hopefullyattract other parties to form a coalition with PKB.
 
Similar to the PKB, Melani Leimena Suharli, member of the Supervisory Board of the Democratic Party, said that the Democrats havenot yet conducted any discussions on a coalition.
 
The Democrats are now organizing a convention to pick their presidential candidate. The convention, with 11 competitors, has notdetermineda winner yet. Mrs. Suharli, however, stressed that the Democrats will decide whether or not they will nominate a presidential candidate after the official election results.
 
(hot/kc)