TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Gerindra firms up on forming coalition with PKB
The Gerindra Party has strongly signaled its intent to team up with the National Awakening Party (PKB) in a mutually beneficial coalition ahead of election season, although no formal deal has been made so far.
Change Size
In this file photo dated Feb. 6, 2020, Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto delivers a speech during the party's 12th anniversary at the Gerindra Central Executive Board (DPP) office in South Jakarta. (Antara/Sigid Kurniawan)
T
he Gerindra Party has strongly signaled its intent to team up with the National Awakening Party (PKB) in a mutually beneficial coalition ahead of the 2024 elections, although no formal deal has been made so far.
After previously noncommittal gestures, Gerindra elites met with their PKB counterparts in Jakarta last Thursday to discuss ways to forge a collaboration for the 2024 general election. None of the two party chairs attended the meeting.
Gerindra central executive board head Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said on Saturday that Gerindra and the PKB had agreed “to cooperate or to form a coalition for the 2024 elections", downplaying doubts from analysts who questioned the seriousness of the former in building the alliance.
While Gerindra members are expected to endorse party chair Prabowo Subianto as their presidential candidate during their national leadership meeting later this month, the party seems to be hanging back from commenting about the possibility of having Muhaimin on Prabowo's ticket.
"[We] will ask Prabowo about his willingness to be nominated as a presidential candidate from Gerindra in the meeting at the end of July. Then, a later forum will determine who will be his vice presidential candidate," Dasco said in a release on Saturday.
Talks of a coalition between Gerindra and the PKB first came to the surface in late June, when the PKB claimed that it had formed an alliance with the third-largest party and nominated its leader Muhaimin Iskandar and Prabowo as vice-presidential and presidential candidates, respectively, for the 2024 race. This came after Muhaimin visited Prabowo at his residence in South Jakarta on June 19.
Read also: PKB claims alliance with noncommittal Gerindra
