Gerindra proposes five criteria to join coalition

The Gerindra Party on Wednesday evening announced five conditions it wanted met prior to its acceptance of an offer to join the leading coalition.

The first of these conditions was to insist on being be allocated a relevant position rather than be regarded as merely a complementing element to the coalition. The coalition currently comprises the Democratic Party, the Golkar Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the United Development Party (PPP), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

"If we are in [...] we want to make a meaningful contribution to the improvement of public welfare, Gerindra secretary-general Ahmad Muzani said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

The second prerequisite was to make development a pro-people process, and the third was to restore state-owned enterprises to being the mobilizer of the national economy.

The fourth was for the government to stop exporting national gas products and focus more on national needs and for it to prioritize food subsistence as opposed to importing.

The meeting in Jakarta to decide on the five criteria was attended by Gerindra Party icon Prabowo and chairman Fadli Zon. Muzani said Gerindra would prefer to remain outside the coalition. "Let our position remain as is. But if we choose to remain outside [the coalition], the government controls need to be more effective," he said Thursday.