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n 2012, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Gerindra Party, eager to burnish their underdog status, nominated political outsiders Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, then mayor of Surakarta, and Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, former Belitung Timur regent, as their ticket in the Jakarta gubernatorial election.

The gamble paid off with the pair winning in a landslide.

Two years later in the 2014 presidential election, the two political parties went their separate ways and nominated their own candidates for the country’s top job, PDI-P backing Jokowi and Gerindra campaigning for the party’s chief patron Prabowo Subianto.

The two parties fought a bitterly contested election and bad blood has persisted between them long after Jokowi became president.

But as the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election draws near, the two parties are now mulling a rekindling of their lost love, united by a common goal: Stopping Ahok from being reelected governor for the 2017-2022 term.

The PDI-P said Sunday that it was communicating with Gerindra and other major political parties on the possibility of forming a big-tent coalition for the upcoming gubernatorial election.

The PDI-P, which has the most seats of any party at the City Council, has stepped up its overtures to Gerindra and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and claims that executives from both parties have responded positively.

“So far, we have talked with PKS and Gerindra. We will extend our talks to other parties in the near future,” PDI-P Jakarta’s election campaign deputy chairman Gembong Warsono told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Gembong said that Gerindra, the PKS and PDI-P had signed an agreement on taking steps to stop what he called “deparpolisasi”, or the weakening of political parties by nominating independent candidates, a term coined by the PDI-P following Ahok’s decision to run as an independent next year.

“With Gerindra and PKS we have agreed to strengthen the roles of political parties, to prevent deparpolisasi,” Gembong said.

PKS and Gerindra are in especially strong positions to help the PDI-P nominate a candidate to challenge Ahok, given that Gerindra, with 15 seats at the City Council, and the PKS, with 11, are the second- and third-largest contingents there.

On Thursday, PDI-P Jakarta’s chairman Bambang Dwi Warsono said his party and Gerindra could agree on jointly nominating a candidate to challenge Ahok, but the two would need further talks to decide who the candidate would be.

The PDI-P has yet to announce its candidate, although it continues to float the names of popular politicians like Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini and Jakarta Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat.

Gerindra, meanwhile, has gone public with three names: businessman Sandiaga Uno, former Jakarta military commander Lt. Gen. (ret) Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin and lawyer and former law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra.

Sandiaga said recently that Prabowo personally preferred to have Sjafrie on the ticket.

Another major party, Golkar, has yet to decide on its stance for the 2017 election, but could well support Ahok given the good relations between the incumbent governor and Golkar chairman Setya Novanto.

“Despite the signal [that Golkar will support Ahok], we will continue talking to them,” Gembong said.

Although Ahok has openly declared his intention to run as an independent, he has secured the support of the Hanura and NasDem parties. Hanura controls 10 seats at the City Council while NasDem has only five. Ahok’s supporters Teman Ahok (Friends of Ahok) meanwhile, have collected more than 900,000 copies of Jakartans’ ID cards so far to support the governor’s candidacy.

On Sunday, Ahok said that despite his decision to run as an independent candidate, he continued to have “a good relationship with parties, especially the PDI-P”.

“I still believe in political parties but Teman Ahok would be concerned if I was endorsed by a political party,” he said.

Ahok continues to be the most popular politician in the city. A recent survey of 400 residents by think tank the Populi Center showed, for example, that Ahok was favored by 50.8 percent of people. Meanwhile, only 5 percent of respondents preferred Yusril and only 1.5 percent said they would vote for Sandiaga in a gubernatorial election.
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