Aburizal Bakrie is the favorite to lead: Golkar executive

A Golkar Party executive says that the current Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, Aburizal Bakrie, is the front runner to replace Jusuf Kalla in the party's chairmanship.
 
"Insya Allah, Ical (Aburizal's nickname) has the biggest chance to become the next chairman. He has gained support from around 500 regional branches," Golkar Central Sulawesi branch chairman, Ridwan Bae, told reporters in Jakarta on Friday.
 
"Ical is very close to all the party's members and stakeholders. He has vast experience, he has also said that he will fully focus on Golkar should he become chairman by refusing any cabinet post offer in the next government," he added.
 
Ridwan said that the strongest rival for Ical would be media tycoon Suryo Paloh. The party's election of the new chairman would take place by the end of July or early August through a national leadership meeting, he said.
 
"It is very likely that Ical will become chairman, Agung Laksono will become the Secretary General and Akbar Tanjung will become the chief of the advisory board," he said.

Agung Laksono is the current House of Representatives Speaker, while Akbar Tanjung is former Golkar chairman.
 
Together with Aburizal, the three of them are well known as the Triple-A or Alpha Trio bloc within Golkar. The bloc held several meetings at Aburizal's house during Kalla's campaigning to win the July 8 presidential election.

Kalla's bloc alleged that those meetings were aimed at reducing Kalla's votes in the election due to the fact that Aburizal and his friends still wanted to have power in the next government rather than playing opposition against the then favorite Democratic Party (PD), whose presidential candidate was incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY).
 
The Triple-A bloc denied the accusation and said that the meetings were just a gathering of old friends trying to ensure Kalla's success in the election.

Based on unofficial quick count results, Kalla seemed to have lost the first round of presidential elections by securing only around 12 percent of the votes, while SBY seemed to have won by gaining around 60 percent of the votes.

A political analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Lili Romli, told The Jakarta Post that it would be better for Golkar to launch a regeneration in its leadership structure.

"There are a lot of young men in Golkar who have the potential and capacity to lead the party," he said.