"We will surely discuss it at the party's executive board plenary meeting with party chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri," Eva told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. 

The PDI-P remains undecided about a candidate for next year’s Jakarta gubernatorial election. The executive board is also studying public preferences for candidates.

Although Megawati has the prerogative to choose the party’s candidate, she will consider public preferences and party members’ suggestion, Eva said. 

On Thursday, dozens of people from the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), the Urban Poor Network (JMRK) and the Indonesian Traditional Fishermen Alliance (KNTI), demonstrated in front of the PDI-P Central Jakarta office to demand that the party not back Ahok in the election. They claimed that they had suffered from Ahok's policies, especially forced evictions. 

"We don't want the PDI-P to support a governor who regularly evicts people. It's our duty to remind the PDI-P not to support the wrong person," Gugun Muhammad of the UPC said as quoted by kompas.com. 

The previous week, 38 activists from the Urban Kampung Forum delivered a letter to Megawati and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. They requested that the PDI-P not support Ahok, claiming his policies contradicted PDI-P ideology to be the party of the “little people". They also claimed that Ahok favored corporations, as evident in the Jakarta Bay reclamation projects. (evi)

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