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n alliance between the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the National Awakening Party (PKB) will be announced soon, a senior PDI-P politician said on Thursday.

'€œWe are just waiting to make it official,'€ PDI-P deputy secretary-general Hasto Kristianto told The Jakarta Post, adding that there would be a meeting between PDI-P leader Megawati Soekarnoputri and PKB leader Muhaimin Iskandar.

Hasto claimed that both parties had a similar ideology and had long been close.

'€œThe PDI-P and PKB have had a long history together since the era of Sukarno until Megawati Soekarnoputri,'€ he said, adding that the parties were waiting for the right time to announce the alliance.

With the PKB'€™s entry, the PDI-P now has three parties in its coalition along with the NasDem Party, which is led by media magnate and former Golkar Party politician Surya Paloh.

According to several quick counts, the PDI-P garnered around 19 percent of the vote in April'€™s legislative election, while the PKB and NasDem gained 9.5 percent and 6.8 percent respectively.

A party or a coalition of parties needs to secure at least 25 percent of the popular vote or 20 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives to be eligible to nominate a presidential candidate.

The PDI-P now has more than enough support (about 37 percent) to field its presidential nominee Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo in the July race. But Hasto said that it did not mean that the coalition was now closed to other parties.

'€œWe have not decided whether there will more members of the coalition or not. The talks are still ongoing while we await the General Elections Commission'€™s [KPU] final vote recapitulation,'€ he said.

PKB secretary-general Imam Nahrowi previously said that the party'€™s executives, both at the central and regional level, had been informed about the planned coalition with the PDI-P.

Imam said that the PKB made no preconditions to enter the coalition because both parties had similar platforms as well as visions and missions.

'€œWe did not require anything because in our view, we need sincere and visionary cooperation between all components of the nation,'€ said Imam on Wednesday as quoted by tribunnews.com.

PDI-P member Eva Sundari confirmed that the PKB had not demanded anything from the PDI-P, including ministerial positions or the vice-presidential candidacy.

She said that the final decision on the vice presidential candidate would be made by Megawati after considering the opinions of others, including coalition members.

The decision will be announced near the registration time set by the KPU, which is scheduled for May 18. '€œWe will announce it two to three days before the KPU opens the registration,'€ said Eva. (idb)