TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
PDI-P ‘keeping options open’ with VP pick shortlist
PDI-P senior executive Puan Maharani revealed on Sunday a shortlist of potential running mates for Ganjar Pranowo, which experts say was meant to show that the ruling party was still open for negotiations.
Change Size
The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has revealed a five-name shortlist of potential running mates for its presidential nominee Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, a move experts say signals the party’s insistence on keeping its options open as it looks to find the winning combination for next year's hotly contested election.
Despite being the only party able to field its own candidate pairing for the 2024 elections, the PDI-P has been seeking to widen an electoral alliance comprising the United Development Party (PPP), Perindo and the Hanura Party. The alliance is eager to build its support base to rival that of Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto, whose popularity has been surging in recent opinion polls.
With Ganjar and Prabowo competing neck-and-neck in terms of electability, and both promoting themselves as potential successors to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, much of the attention in the coalition-building process has shifted to the nomination of vice-presidential candidates.
To this end, PDI-P senior executive Puan Maharani revealed on Sunday that there is now a shortlist of potential running mates for Ganjar from a list of 10 names.
“One of them is Cak Imin,” Puan told reporters as quoted by Kompas.com, in reference to National Awakening Party (PKB) chairman Muhaimin Iskandar, the host of the event in Surakarta, Central Java, to which she was invited that day.
Muhaimin had been courting Prabowo to make him his running mate, as their two parties seek to put together a second electoral alliance able to field its own candidates.
Other names on the PDI-P’s shortlist include Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno, a recent inductee of the PPP; State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir, a close aide of Jokowi; former Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Gen. (ret.) Andika Perkasa, an ally of the PDI-P; and Democratic Party chairman Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, whose party is backing a third coalition looking to nominate opposition figurehead Anies Baswedan as its own presidential candidate.
Sandiaga and Erick are among the most popular choices to become vice-presidential candidates, according to recent opinion polls, while Andika is reportedly on the ruling party’s radar to lead Ganjar’s campaign, despite his modest electability.
Agus, meanwhile, is thought to be the frontrunner for the vice-presidential candidacy to be paired with Anies, even though there are moves to persuade him to switch sides.
Fixing scores
Analysts have said that the vice-presidential candidate shortlist plays into the suggestion that the largest party in the government coalition is trying to keep all its options on the table, while also putting pressure on both Prabowo’s and Anies’ respective camps with the inclusion of the PKB’s Muhaimin and the Democrats’ Agus.
“The party is keen to give the impression that it is still very open to any and all electoral alliances,” political analyst Firman Noor of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) said on Monday.
But Firman added that the PDI-P’s decision would hinge on how well a candidate can compensate for Ganjar’s electoral performance ahead of the registration period in October, if at that time the governor has yet to reclaim his lead in electability surveys.
Ganjar topped electability polls for 18 months until April, when he had to grapple with the political fallout from his objection to the participation of Israel’s national team in the FIFA Under-20 soccer World Cup.
A June poll from Indikator Politik Indonesia found that Ganjar’s electability slightly increased to 35.7 percent from 34 percent in April. Meanwhile, Prabowo's electability rose from 31.7 percent to 36.8 percent over the same period, taking the top spot away from Ganjar. Anies, on the other hand, continues to languish in third in terms of electability, falling from 25.2 percent confidence to 21.5 percent.
Potent combinations
Among the names Puan mentioned on Sunday, Firman of BRIN said that Andika and Agus were the least likely to come out on top, owing to the fact that Andika has scant political party backing while Agus’ Democrats must still overcome irreconcilable differences with the PDI-P.
“To win the elections, the PDI-P cannot rely solely on its image of being a strictly nationalist party,” Firman said. “It also needs a figure who is seen as someone who can bring in the required results in order to compensate for the perception that Ganjar is all talk and no action.”
Sandiaga, Erick and Muhaimin would much better fit the bill, the political researcher said, as the first two could leverage their business savvy and experience while the latter could help Ganjar appeal to Muslim voters.
Sandiaga led the capital Jakarta as deputy governor alongside Anies, while Erick has been winning the favor of millions of soccer fans with his reform-minded policies as the chief of the Soccer Association of Indonesia (PSSI).
The choice of Muhaimin, whose party is closely tied with the nation’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, could very well mirror the winning combo of the 2019 election, when Jokowi was paired with senior NU cleric Ma’ruf Amin.
However, each candidate also has their own specific drawbacks, Firman warned.
Sandiaga and the PPP, as well as Erick and the National Mandate Party (PAN) that backs him, currently have no reliable supporter base, while Muhaimin is hardly the most popular Muslim figure.
According to the latest Indikator survey, Erick’s name always came out on top in electability simulations whenever he was paired with either Ganjar or Prabowo.
One simulation found that if Ganjar ran with Erick, the pair would come out on top with 37.7 percent of the vote. Another simulation found that a Prabowo-Erick pairing would slightly edge out a Ganjar-Sandiaga pair.
