A

nother stumbling block has been put in the way of Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie’s bid for the presidency with the party’s board of advisors issuing a six-month deadline for him to boost his electability.

Apparently not convinced by Aburizal’s efforts to gain the public’s trust, the board’s chairman, Akbar Tandjung, has threatened to annul Aburizal’s nomination in July 2013.

“I think Aburizal must not be over confident and ignore the fact that the results from opinion polls and surveys have not indicated a rise in his popularity. The party should immediately mull other options although I cannot tell you what those options might be,” said Akbar, a veteran politician who also served as party chairman until 2004.

Akbar said that July next year was the perfect time to run an evaluation of Aburizal’s nomination “because it will be exactly one year after Golkar decided to name Aburizal as its official presidential candidate for the 2014 election.”

He said that one year was more than enough for Aburizal to boost his electability rating.

“Also, we will have about one year before the election. It will still be possible for us to nominate another figure at that time and work on his or her bid,” he said.

Akbar, who serves as a de facto leader of opposition within the party, also confirmed that the advisory board had officially sent a letter to the party’s leadership about the ultimatum.

Opinion polls have regularly put Aburizal at the bottom of lists of the most electable candidates, far below figures like chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Megawati Soekarnoputri, patron of the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto, Constitutional Court chief justice Mahfud MD and Aburizal’s predecessor as Golkar chairman, Jusuf Kalla.

A study by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) last month even omitted Aburizal from its list of 18 most-preferred candidates for the 2014 presidential election, in spite of Aburizal’s media campaign to boost his popularity.

Analysts say that Aburizal’s image has been badly tarnished by the mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo, East Java, which was allegedly caused by improper drilling by PT Lapindo Brantas, an exploration company partly controlled by the Bakrie family. The disaster has displaced thousands and cost the government trillions of rupiah in recovery measures.

Aburizal spokesman, Lalu Mara Satria Wangsa, acknowledged that Aburizal’s electability rating was still below those of other figures such as Megawati and Prabowo.

Lalu Mara, however, downplayed Akbar’s ultimatum, saying that Aburizal had designed a special strategy to boost his popularity. “I appreciate Akbar’s letter. It will be treated as an impetus for us.”

Lalu Mara said he was surprised that the letter, which should have been kept confidential, had been widely circulated by Sunday.

“The trend of Aburizal’s electability has been positive, albeit still low. We can’t make a decision based on today’s electability because the election is still one-and-a-half years away,” he said, adding that Aburizal had been testing what he called the “4-3-2-1” strategy.

“It is assumed that a family of two parents and two children are Golkar supporters. That is the four. Each family member will be asked to invite three other people to support Golkar who will then be asked to invite two people. At last, each of the two will be asked to bring one new Golkar supporter. In soccer, the 4-3-2-1 strategy almost never loses,” he said.

Previously, Aburizal’s camp responded with hostility to Kalla’s announcement that he might run on a presidential ticket alongside former president Megawati in 2014.

Golkar’s top politicians have expressed concern about Kalla’s plan, saying the former vice president’s move might split the party’s support for Aburizal’s presidential bid.