T

he candidacy of National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman Hatta Rajasa for the 2014 presidential election race has been undermined by the party'€™s own founder Amien Rais who described Hatta'€™s nomination as unrealistic given the party'€™s low electability rating.

Hatta, the Coordinating Economic Minister who is also known as a close confidant of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has stepped up his campaign for the presidential bid since his party officially named him a candidate in December, 2011.

But public opinion polls have put Hatta'€™s electability rating in the single digits. PAN also appears to be heading for a dismal electoral performance with many pollsters predicting that it will get less than 5 percent of the vote.

'€œIf PAN could get at least 12 percent of the vote [in the legislative election], we should not hesitate to nominate him [Hatta] as a presidential candidate. But I think that will be difficult and we should be more realistic,'€ Amien told reporters over the weekend.

The 2009 law on presidential elections stipulates that only political parties that win more than 20 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives (DPR) or 25 percent of nationwide legislative votes, whether alone or in coalition, can field presidential candidates.

With the 6 percent of the vote it got in the 2009 legislative election, PAN currently has 43 seats in the House.

Amien'€™s statement could also be seen as a prediction of PAN'€™s dismal outlook ahead of the 2014 election.

Amien suggested that if PAN got less than 12 percent in the 2014 legislative election, Hatta should allow himself to be nominated as vice president instead. '€œWith 12 percent of the vote, it would be a more comfortable situation for PAN to nominate Hatta. However, if the vote is less than that, perhaps a nomination as vice president [would be more realistic for Hatta],'€ he said.

Amien'€™s statement on Saturday could be seen as a turning point.

Amien, a former People'€™s Consultative Assembly (MPR) speaker who is also known as a key figure behind the 1998 reform movement, had backed Hatta'€™s presidential ambition until very recently.

Hatta himself has always been tightlipped about his nomination. '€œ[My candidacy] is my party'€™s official decision. Thank you for the support, but for now, I want to focus on my job first which is to save this country'€™s economy,'€ he said recently.

Recently, Hatta shrugged off public opinion surveys which put him far below other candidates such as popular Jakarta Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo or former commander of the Army'€™s Special Forces (Kopassus) and Great Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) chief patron, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto.

'€œAnybody has the right to join the race. But if you are worried about losing before the race, you are dead before you actually die,'€ he said.

A survey by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in May showed that Hatta'€™s electability rating was a mere 2.2 percent, far below Jokowi'€™s 28.6 percent and Prabowo'€™s 15.6 percent.

Another survey by the United Data Center (PDB), which was published in July, put Hatta in seventh position with a 1.2 percent electability rating. Jokowi came first with 29.57 percent and Prabowo 19.83 percent.

Amien recently came up with a proposal to pair Hatta with Jokowi. '€œWe need a Javanese in the pair because 65 percent of the Indonesian population are Javanese,'€ he said. Hatta is a native of Palembang, South Sumatra.

'€œA Hatta, Jokowi pairing would resemble our first president Sukarno and vice president Muhammad Hatta,'€ Amien said. Sukarno was Javanese while Hatta was from West Sumatra.