Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – Indonesia's Golkar party has opened up the national election race by declaring Vice-President Jusuf Kalla will stand against President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

It is likely to be a poisoned chalice for Mr Kalla, and is the result of bloodletting within the party that came to a head at a meeting of national leaders in Jakarta yesterday.

At a sombre announcement by officials, all wearing the party's traditional yellow blazers, Mr Kalla, Golkar's chairman, thanked them for bestowing on him "this heavy mandate". As well, the meeting resolved to seek coalition partners outside the current arrangement with Mr Yudhoyono's Democrat Party.

Although barely 11 per cent of the vote from the parliamentary elections a fortnight ago has been counted, it seems only the Democrats will meet the 20 per cent threshold of seats in the parliament – or 25 per cent of the national vote – to stand a candidate for the presidency in their own right.

But now that Golkar, which looks to have won about 15 per cent of the popular vote, has declared its intention to stand a candidate, the parties will get into the nitty-gritty of coalition negotiations. Deals with the smaller parties among the 38 that stood for election will be the target for Golkar officials.

The Democrat Party and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle are expected to announce tomorrow who they will stand as candidates in the July 8 election.

The race now seems certain to be between three candidates: Mr Yudhoyono, Mr Kalla and Ms Megawati. Negotiations will focus on who stands as running mates for each of the three, and what deals can be done over potential cabinet seats.

Mr Yudhoyono announced on Sunday the five qualities he required in a vice-presidential running mate: integrity, capacity, loyalty, party support and popular acceptability.

This was widely interpreted as a challenge to Mr Kalla and Golkar, signalling that the President was unhappy with the Vice-President's performance.

But despite Golkar's determination to seek alternative coalition partners, the door is not completely closed to a reunion with the Democrats. However, it would probably involve another senior party figure joining Mr Yudhoyono. This could be someone such as former parliamentary speaker Akbar Tandjung, who has strong factional support within Golkar but has struggled to remove the tarnish of corruption charges.

He was sentenced to three years' jail in 2004 for misusing funds allocated to the state logistics agency, Bulog, intended to feed the poor. Although the decision was overturned on appeal, Mr Tandjung's candidacy would not help a Yudhoyono re-election campaign based on corruption-busting credentials.

An alternative could be Mr Yudhoyono's Finance Minister, the US-educated economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who previously ran the International Monetary Fund for the region.