STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT-Jakarta. Gerindra’s presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto said that five major political parties, which currently back President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration, could join forces to nominate a unified presidential ticket in the 2024 general elections.
The five political parties are Gerindra, PAN, the United Development Party (PPP), the Golkar Party and the National Awakening Party (PKB).
Prabowo also said the planned electoral alliance, if it materialized, could back a ticket supported by President Jokowi. “We’re already in Pak Jokowi’s team, aren’t we?” Prabowo said.
President Jokowi held a meeting with the leaders of political parties grouped in the pro-government coalition on Sunday, but Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chair Megawati Soekarnoputri became a notable absentee.
The participants included Zulkifli, Golkar Party Chair Airlangga Hartarto, and United Development Party (PPP) Chair Mardiono, who have established the United Indonesia Coalition on one side, and the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) Chair Prabowo Subianto and National Awakening Party (PKB) Chair Muhaimin Iskandar, who have set up the Great Indonesia Awakening Coalition on the other side.
Joining up the five parties could potentially isolate Megawati’s PDI-P, which has yet to announce its presidential candidate despite having the luxury of doing so independently and party executive.
Five of the seven pro-government political parties in the legislative body are expected to build a grand alliance for the 2024 presidential election amid speculations of strained relations between President Jokowi and the establishment of his own political party.
A gathering of party elites involving members of the United Indonesia Coalition (KIB) and the Great Indonesia Awakening Coalition (KIR) at an iftar event on Sunday produced an understanding between the two alliances over the possibility of building a big-tent coalition to nominate a unified presidential ticket in the next election.
The NasDem Party, which backs opposition figure Anies Baswedan, and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which has enough seats in the legislative body to go it alone in the 2024 presidential race, were conspicuously absent from the meeting.
CSIS Political and Change Department Director Arya Fernandes saw the gathering as a way for the parties to get ready to develop their strategic plans for the 2024 presidential elections. However, he said that there is no significant agreement on who will be nominated or how the presidential and vice presidential pairs will be determined.
PDI-P Central Board Chair Said Abdullah said the party’s absence from the iftar event with President Jokowi at the National Mandate Party (PAN) office was not due to a lack of invitation. He said the Party Central Executive Board Chair Puan Maharani was unable to attend because she was not in Jakarta.
Democratic Party Chair Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (AHY) is facing another leadership challenge from Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko, who has filed yet another legal petition seeking recognition of his claim to the top seat of the nation’s largest opposition party.
The petition, if granted, could jeopardize the candidacy of former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan, the presidential nominee of the Coalition for Change and Unity, the 2024 electoral alliance to which the Democratic Party belongs.
Moeldoko, who is not a member of the party, is seeking to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that rejected his earlier petition to annul the Law and Human Right Ministry’s refusal to ratify the results of a Democratic Party extraordinary congress that had elected him the party chairman, Agus said at a press conference.
In a plenary session, the House of Representatives officially passed Government Regulation in Lieu of Law on Elections to become law.
It includes provisions on the formation of election organizers in Papua’s new provinces, the schedule of election campaigns, and elections in the new capital city of Nusantara in 2024.
House Speaker Puan Maharani said the upcoming general election will be held as planned after the House passed the regulation.
