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ormer vice president Jusuf Kalla said he is ready to join the ticket of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) Megawati Soekarnoputri as a vice presidential candidate for the 2014 election.

Kalla said he “wouldn’t mind” being paired with Megawati and that he would not represent Golkar Party in the bid.

“If I am not representing Golkar Party, then I have no objection to the proposal. Everything is possible in politics,” Kalla told reporters during a visit to Multimedia Nusantara University in Serpong, Banten.

Kalla said that he had had informal talks with the PDI-P but refused to confirm if the party had officially asked him to join the ticket. “That’s not a pressing matter,” Kalla said.

Kalla, who is a former chairman and still member of the Golkar Party, said that the leadership of Golkar could do little about his presidential ambition.

He said that with or without Golkar’s backing he would run in 2014 presidential election.

Golkar has officially nominated its chairman Aburizal Bakrie for the presidential election in spite of concerns about his electability.

Aburizal’s low popularity has led some to speculate that other politicians in the party have started working to undo his candidacy.

Some of the party’s top officials reportedly backed Kalla as the party’s candidate.

More than three years after he left office, Kalla remains a popular
politician.

The latest opinion poll released last week by the Political Weather Station (PWS), showed that Kalla’s favorability rating hovers at 22 percent, above Megawati with 20 percent.

Golkar secretary-general Idrus Marham said the party was unperturbed by Kalla’s intention to join the PDI-P ticket.

Idrus said that Kalla was only exercising his political right to be nominated for public office.

“The problem with his ambition is that Golkar Party has its own mechanism to select the candidate, and we have already selected him,” he told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

Idrus also said that he was convinced that Kalla would not run in the 2014 presidential election.

“I believe that Pak Kalla is a national figure, who does not look for power and position. He has already run for president why does he want to run for the second time?” he said.

Paramadina University political analyst Yudi Latif said joining the PDI-P ticket appeared to be the only logical option for Kalla.

He said that it was unlikely that Aburizal would pick him as his running mate to represent Golkar.

“If Kalla is paired with Ical [Aburizal Bakrie] then it would be odd, because neither of them is Javanese. It makes more sense if he joins Megawati’s ticket,” he said.

One of the conventional wisdoms in Indonesian politics that a presidential candidate has to be Javanese, since the Javanese are the largest ethnic group in the country.

Yudi said that Kalla’s alliance with Megawati would significantly boost the pair’s chance of winning the election.

“Megawati herself has about 14 to 15 percent of loyal voters,” he added.

A recent survey conducted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, found that Kalla was one of three most favored candidates.

The others are patron of the Greater Indonesian Movement (Gerindra) Party Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto and Megawati.

Kalla, who is currently chairman of the Indonesian Red Cross, was preferred by 11 percent of respondents; behind Prabowo with 14.5 percent and Megawati, with 14.4 percent.