W

hile waiting for the official results from the General Elections Commission (KPU), most political parties are happy about their achievements in the concurrent regional polls held earlier this month.

Larger political parties, such as the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party, the Democratic Party and the Gerindra Party have conducted their own counts and claim that they have reached beyond their goals and secured dominance in the regions.

The PDI-P, Golkar and Gerindra participated in all 101 regional polls this year, while the Democrats only ran in 94.

Out of the total of 101 regions holding polls on Feb. 15, the PDI-P claims to have won in 54 regions, including gubernatorial elections in West Papua and Jakarta. The party made coalitions with other parties, but claims that 24 elected regional leaders and 26 elected deputy leaders were PDI-P members.

“In the 54 areas where we won, 50 elected candidates are PDI-P members thanks to the good recruitment process in the party. These are the members who have graduated from the party’s internal membership school,” PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto said on Sunday.

PDI-P executive Hendrawan Soepratikno said the party had made history with the country’s first ethnic Chinese woman, Tjhai Chui Mie, to be elected as mayor, in Singkawang, West Kalimantan.

Golkar, which is in the pro-government camp with the PDI-P in the national coalition and has the second-largest number of seats at the House of Representatives, claimed that it won 58 percent across the country, led by strong performances from its own members, including Rusli Habibie who won the Gorontalo gubernatorial election.

Hendrawan did not want to predict whether the wins would be significant enough to boost the party’s electability in the 2019 legislative elections, saying he preferred to wait for the results of the 2018 regional elections.

“There will be other simultaneous regional elections next year, some of which are in densely populated regions. We’re now trying to be consistent [by winning in these regions],” Hendrawan said.

Golkar secretary-general Idrus Marham said the party fell slightly short of its target of 60 percent wins. “But this year’s victories are significantly higher than the 2015 elections, which only amounted to 52 percent, thanks to the swift and effective internal consolidation since chairman [Setya Novanto] took the helm [last year],” Idrus said.

Prabowo Subianto, patron of opposition coalition leader Gerindra, said his party had won in 45 cities and regencies and three provinces. The three winning candidates in the provincial elections were Gerindra members, Prabowo claimed on Saturday.

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, claimed it had won in 46 of the 94 regions it ran in, which means an almost 50 percent success rate. The party said this was better than its target, which was 35 percent.

Titi Anggraini of the election watchdog Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) said victory in regional elections would definitely affect parties’ electability in the 2019 legislative election, especially for the parties whose members won.

Rusli of Gorontalo, for example, was endorsed by Golkar, the Democratic Party and the National Awakening Party (PKB), but people view him as a Golkar man.

“If the parties have members who lead the regions, it will be easier for them to mobilize support in the legislative elections. Regional leaders can contribute a lot,” Titi said.

Political expert from Indobarometer M. Qodari concurred with Titi, saying that regional leaders tended to dominate their regions but warned that the real electoral competition would be in 2018.

“Next year, the elections will be held in big regions, including West Java and East Java, whose populations account for almost half of the total population of the country. That is when they will be all out to get their victories,” Qodari said.