Coalition Time in Indonesia: Let the Horse-Trading Commence
Presidential candidate and Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo talks to his supporters in Cilegon. (Reuters Photo/Beawiharta)
Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo and his Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P; former general Prabowo Subianto and his Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra; and business tycoon Aburizal Bakrie and his Golkar Party continued on Sunday to search for coalition partners ahead of the July 9 presidential election.
Based on the "quick counts" — the final result is still being calculated — the April 9 legislative election failed to produce a dominant winner; the PDI-P, Golkar and Gerindra got 19 percent, 15 percent and 12 percent of the vote respectively.
By law, each presidential candidate must be nominated by a political party or coalition of parties that has won at least 25 percent of the vote or 20 percent of parliamentary seats in the legislative election. However negotiations over the weekend have produced several results that could shape political alliances in the months ahead.
Support for Joko
Media mogul Surya Paloh's National Democrat Party (NasDem) announced on Saturday that it had thrown its support behind Joko and the PDI-P. Announcing the move at a press conference at the party's office on Saturday, Surya said "We want Indonesia to be great."
The press conference was attended by Joko and senior members of NasDem and the PDI-P. NasDem received over 6 percent of votes, according to quick counts. Surya said NasDem would continue to hold talks with the PDI-P about forming common policy ground.
"We still have to discuss whether NasDem will endorse any vice president. Further discussions will be held in the next two or three days with PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri," Surya said.
Joko responded positively to the announcement, praising Surya for not seeking any guarantees regarding cabinet positions. "We have put aside the idea of political transactions," Joko said.
"We have agreed to avoid it. I respect Surya's magnanimity by not putting forward a discussion about the vice presidency or the cabinet at this stage. It shows the magnanimity of a statesman."
Surya, who owns Metro TV and Media Indonesia newspaper, said he would contribute resources to a strategy that would pave the way for a Joko presidency. "We'll do land, sea and aerial attacks to win the hearts and trust of the people," Surya said.
Former vice president and Golkar chairman Jusuf Kalla said the tie-up between NasDem and the PDI-P was predictable, given the talks that had taken place for some time between the party leaders.
"It fits," Kalla said. "When Surya was with me at Golkar as head of the advisory board, he always communicated with the PDI-P. He was the one that bridged Golkar and the PDI-P."
Kalla has previously indicated that he would be prepared to run for vice president under Joko.
After meeting Surya, Joko met with Golkar chairman Aburizal — but no agreement was reached and Aburizal continued to say that he would not form a coalition with the PDI-P.
"The PDI-P has its own candidate and Golkar has its own candidate," Joko said.
Joko did not, however, want to rule out a Golkar-PDI-P alliance after the election. "We will meet later after the presidential election," he said.
Aburizal said he would not stand in the way of Kalla running alongside Joko, but stressed that the support of the Golkar Party would not be available to him during the campaign.
"It is fine, as long as he follows the party's regulations," Aburizal said on Saturday after meeting Joko. He said he had yet to decide on his running mate. "If the person is a man, he should be handsome," he joked. "If the person is a woman, she should be pretty."
While the votes accumulated for the PDI-P and NasDem are enough to nominate Joko for president, the presumptive candidate also met with Muhaimin Iskandar, chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB), later on Saturday to invite the latter to join the coalition. The Islamic-based PKB was the surprise package in the polls, winning 9 percent, according to quick counts. However, the talks failed to produce instant results as the PKB wanted to know if Muhaimin would be Jokowi's running mate, and how many ministers it would get in the next cabinet.
Marwan Jafar, an executive from the PKB's central board, indicated that the party prioritized power sharing as a precondition for talks. "It's a good thing that cooperation is not solely about power sharing," Marwan said. "But there should be power sharing in cooperation."
Marwan said that the party's board wanted Muhaimin to be made Joko's vice presidential candidate.
Besides Muhaimin, other names have floated for the post, including Kalla; Mahfud M.D., the former chief justice of the Constitutional Court; Hatta Rajasa of the National Mandate Party (PAN); and former Army chief Ryamizard Ryacudu.
Ryamizard and Joko met on Sunday and held a brief discussion. Joko said the PDI-P would continue meeting with other parties and would decide on his running mate next week.
The PDI-P looks unlikely to form a coalition with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party because of the past acrimony between Yudhoyono and PDI-P chief Megawati, in whose administration Yudhoyono once served.
"SBY has been trying to communicate with Megawati, but there is no response from the latter. I think they are unlikely to form a coalition," said Achmad Mubarok, a member of the Democrats' board of advisers. In 2004, Megawati was angered by her then minister Yudhoyono, when he decided to run for president after vowing he would not seek the presidency.
Islamic party coalition?
The PKB, meanwhile, is considering forming an alliance of Islamic parties. Besides the PKB, such a bloc would possibly comprise the PAN, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and United Development Party (PPP). The four parties together commanded more than 30 percent of the legislative vote last week.
However such a coalition would be difficult to construct as each party has different interests, and would still lack a strong figure as a presidential candidate.
For its part, the PKS proposed on Sunday to form a coalition first, and then offer itself to Prabowo and Gerindra in exchange for a vice presidential nomination and ministerial posts.
"If all Islamic parties were united, we would have 31 percent of the vote. This coalition would have a strong enough bargaining position before we proposed something to a nationalist party, such as Gerindra," said Refrizal, a senior PKS politician.
Refrizal said that Gerindra was the perfect choice because it was committed to rejecting all foreign intervention.
Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring supported the idea, arguing that if Islamic parties failed to capitalize on their current momentum, they would miss the boat entirely.
"If we form a coalition with the nationalist parties we will be strong. Otherwise, we will get nothing," he said.
Big tent
Meanwhile, Prabowo said he planned to form a coalition he styled as a "big tent," comprising nationalist and Islamic parties. "We are open for a coalition with any parties," he said.
Prabowo has held talks with leaders of Golkar and the Democratic Party, as well as with the Islamic four of the PKB, PKS, PAN and PPP. So far, Suryadharma Ali, the chairman of the of PPP, which gained 6 percent of the vote last week, has expressed support for a Prabowo presidency.
Experts, however, expressed concerns that Prabowo's plan could repeat the blunder made by Yudhoyono in rendering his administration ineffective by inviting too many parties into his governing coalition. "He wants to continue Yudhoyono's obsession with the politics of harmony," said Siti Zuhro, a political expert with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
She said that while Gerindra needed to collect plenty of votes from other parties to be able to nominate Prabowo, Yudhoyono's error should not be repeated.
Golkar divide?
Beside risking losing to Kalla, Aburizal faces other enemies from within Golkar. On Sunday, former Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung dealt a blow to Aburizal Bakrie's presidential nomination.
Akbar, Golkar's chief patron, has laid the blame for the party's poor showing in the legislative election squarely at Aburizal, who he says was too busy promoting himself as a presidential candidate instead of working on consolidating the party's voter base.
Interim results suggest Golkar received around 15 percent, less than its target of 20 percent. With that result, Golkar will gain around 90 to 95 seats in the House compared to the 2009 elections which saw it take 106.
Akbar said Golkar would ill soon hold a national leaders' meeting to evaluate the election result.
"It needs explanation — why did we not achieve the goal, with the result that we are not able to nominate our own presidential candidate?" he said. "We must discuss if we need to continue having our own presidential candidate or whether to form a coalition. If the probability is small, do we need to force it?" he added.
At the press conference, Akbar declared that he was ready to run as a vice president in the upcoming election.
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