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Golkar youth say they will break ranks, support Jokowi-Kalla
A rift within the Golkar Party over chairman Aburizal Bakrieâs last minute deal with the Gerindra Party to pledge the partyâs support for the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa presidential ticket widened on Wednesday with many young Golkar politicians decrying the move as a violation of party rules
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rift within the Golkar Party over chairman Aburizal Bakrie's last minute deal with the Gerindra Party to pledge the party's support for the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa presidential ticket widened on Wednesday with many young Golkar politicians decrying the move as a violation of party rules.
One of those rejecting the party's coalition with Gerindra is Indra J. Piliang, who said he and scores of other young Golkar politicians would break ranks and endorse the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) ticket of Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo and Jusuf Kalla.
'Soon we will declare our official support for Jokowi-Kalla. There is an ongoing conversation in the party that Kalla is no longer part of Golkar. How could this be possible, knowing that he used to serve as party chairman? We will not abandon Kalla,' Indra said.
He added that by declaring the party's support for Prabowo, Aburizal had violated a decision made in last week's executive meeting, which had only given him the mandate to be a candidate for the party.
'The meeting issued a mandate for Aburizal to be either a presidential or vice presidential candidate. When that proved impossible, he reinterpreted the mandate as one giving him control over the party's coalition decision,' Indra said.
He went on to say that the Golkar leadership also did not order Aburizal to 'beg' for ministerial positions from both camps as a condition to join either of them.
'The meeting did not discuss Cabinet position deals, so they should not have been put on the table when he was negotiating.'
Aburizal's 11th hour coalition maneuvers have been panned by Golkar members. After the PDI-P rejected Aburizal's proposition that Golkar receive several Cabinet seats in the next government, Gerindra offered Golkar only two ministerial positions. Aburizal accepted.
Separately, Kalla expressed confidence that he and Jokowi would win support from Golkar Party members regardless of the party's official coalition.
'It will be a contest of figures, not parties. I am a former chairman of Golkar. As members of Golkar, will you choose leaders from other parties over your former chairman?' Kalla told reporters on the sidelines of a closed-door PDI-P strategy meeting.
Though Golkar had earlier appeared poised to join with the PDI-P ' Aburizal even going so far as to publicly pledge his support for Jokowi during a press stunt at a Jakarta market ' the party is now in the Gerindra coalition along with the National Mandate Party (PAN), United Development Party (PPP), Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Crescent Star Party (PBB).
Golkar Party lawmaker Mahyudin, an Aburizal supporter, said that the national meeting actually had decided to give Aburizal a mandate as the party chairman to decide Golkar's coalition path.
'It's been agreed that Golkar will support the Prabowo-Hatta ticket,' Mahyuddin said, adding that the decision should be backed by all Golkar members as the national meeting was the party's highest decision-making body.
He said the party would penalize any members who 'violated' the decision made at meeting.
'The sanctions will vary depending on the degree of violations. It can be the revocation of membership cards to dismissal from structural positions in the party, which will automatically lead to the consequence of not being able to serve as one of the Golkar party's members at the House of Representatives.'
