A recent meeting between opposition presidential candidate Anies Baswedan and former maritime affairs and fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti has led to speculation that he is considering her as his running mate, a notion that has split, yet again, the three-way alliance backing his candidacy.

Pressure from the electoral alliance’s constituent parties – the NasDem Party, the Democratic Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) – has been mounting on Anies to name who will run alongside him on their combined ticket, as the former Jakarta governor contends with a slide in opinion polls.

He visited Susi at her private residence in the coastal West Java regency of Pangandaran on Monday and stayed there until Tuesday.

“[We had] casual conversations about a lot of topics. Some were serious, some were light-hearted and some were about political and social [issues],” Anies said on Tuesday of his meeting with Susi, as quoted by Kompas.com.

Susi, meanwhile, reportedly declined to answer when reporters asked whether she and Anies had discussed the question of his running mate.

Just a week before her meeting with Anies, Susi received Anies’ potential rival in 2024, Prabowo Subianto, at her Pangandaran residence. But she played down suggestions that she was looking to partner up with the Gerindra Party chairman and presumptive presidential nominee, who also has yet to name his running mate.

Split alliance

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