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Puan’s trip may shift party alliances
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House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani (right), who also chairs the central board of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), speaks to her mother, PDI-P matriarch Megawati Soekarnoputri, during the party’s national working meeting on June 21, 2022 in Jakarta. (Antara/M. Risyal Hidayat)
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political tour carried out by Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) executive Puan Maharani in recent days is expected to change the political map ahead of the 2024 presidential election, as the nation’s largest party seeks coalition partners to extend its rule beyond the reign of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
In her latest stop on her political trip, at the private residence of Gerindra Party leader and presidential nominee Prabowo Subianto in Hambalang, West Java, on Sunday, Puan broached the possibility of forming an alliance with the nation’s second-largest party, a political maneuver that analysts say could be game changing for the 2024 election.
Puan, the first woman to serve as House of Representatives speaker and the clear political heir of the Sukarno clan within the PDI-P, made clear that she did not rule out the possibility of being paired with Prabowo in the race for the country’s top job.
“I think the possibility is there — there is nothing impossible in politics if it is for the advancement of the nation,” she told reporters after the meeting.
Prabowo, the only presidential hopeful to have secured enough support to contest the upcoming election after Gerindra formally declared its alliance with the National Awakening Party (PKB), shared the same sentiment. “Theoretically, [running with Puan] is definitely possible,” Prabowo said. “Anything is possible if it’s for the good of the nation.”
Hambalang was the second high-profile visit made by Puan after her meeting with NasDem Party leader Surya Paloh at the NasDem Tower in Jakarta last month. Despite being a pro-government party, NasDem is poised to work with the opposition parties to back the nomination of Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan in the upcoming presidential race.
Analysts have said that party alliances for 2024 would center on three figures who have consistently topped political surveys: Prabowo, Anies and Central Governor Ganjar Pranowo, with whom Puan competed for her party’s presidential nomination. A potential pairing of Puan with either Prabowo or Anies could shut the door for Ganjar, a PDI-P politician, to contest the election, turning it into a two-horse race.
