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Infighting haunts PDI-P as party seeks Jokowi's successor
Megawati will again face a tough choice: whether to pave the way for another political “outsider” to help the party win the election or to push for her political heir to maintain the Sukarno dynasty’s stranglehold on the party.
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Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo speaks to students taking part in a rally to commemorate International Anticorruption Day in Semarang on Sunday. (Courtesy of Central Java Adminisration Press Bureau/-)
T
he Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the largest faction in the ruling coalition and the party of which President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is a member, is struggling to unify its political strategy to win a post-Jokowi presidency.
Tensions are brewing between Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo and House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani as the two high-profile PDI-P members tacitly compete for the party’s presidential nomination to follow Jokowi, whose term will end in 2024 and who is constitutionally barred from seeking another.
All eyes are on party matriarch and Puan’s mother Megawati Sukarnoputri, who will have to maintain party unity and discipline as she makes the final decision on its presidential nomination and political future.
As the kingmaker who catapulted Jokowi – then the little-known mayor of Surakarta – to the Jakarta governorship in 2012 and to the presidency two years later, Megawati will again face a tough choice: whether to pave the way for another political “outsider” to help the party win the election or to push for her political heir to maintain the Sukarno dynasty’s stranglehold on the party.
A ‘threat’ for Ganjar
On Thursday, in the face of internal divisions, Megawati chastised party members who refused to abide by its protocols, saying the PDI-P would not hesitate to fire recalcitrant members.
