Golkar will nominate Bakrie soon

JAKARTA: The Golkar Party will officially announce its nomination of party chairman Aburizal Bakrie next month to run for the 2014 presidential election.

Party deputy secretary-general Lalu Mara Satria Wangsai said on Saturday that the October 2011, national leadership meeting decided to establish the name of the party’s presidential candidate through an internal party mechanism in the next leadership meeting in June.

He said all meeting participants from 33 regional branches and party wings and party founders agreed unanimously to ask for Bakrie’s readiness to be nominated by the party as the only presidential candidate.

“Everything has undergone the party’s mechanism. There is no special national leadership meeting or an accelerated one,” Lalu said, referring to the meeting next month.

However, Golkar’s board chairman Akbar Tandjung questioned the party for accommodating only one person while there were several other people, according to a recent survey, that also had the potential to win the presidential election.

“According to the survey, there are JK [former vice president Jusuf Kalla] and me. But apparently the survey is no longer of their concern although Aburizal once said that survey was very important,” Akbar said.