Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Febriamy Hutapea – The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, and the Golkar Party – now clearly relegated to second and third place after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party in the recent legislative polls – are planning to build a coalition with four other parties to face the July presidential election, their executives said on Tuesday.

"The coalition will aim to establish a large, stable administration in the future, both in the cabinet and in the legislature," said Soemarsono, Golkar secretary general, after a closed-door meeting with a PDI-P team led by his counterpart, Pramono Anung, at a hotel in Central Jakarta.

He said the two parties, which preliminary and quick counts showed to lag far behind the Democratic Party in the April 9 legislative elections, had agreed to establish a larger coalition with fledgling upstarts the People's Conscience Party, or Hanura, and the Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra, as well as with the more established United Development Party, or PPP, and the National Mandate Party, or PAN.

Gerindra was founded by Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto, while Hanura is chaired by Gen. (ret.) Wiranto. The two other parties – PPP and PAN – are divided between those wanting to support Yudhoyono and those who want to join the PDI-P's camp.

Based on the official preliminary vote tally late on Tuesday, the six parties accounted for about 48 percent of the about 14.7 million votes counted so far. There were some 170 million eligible voters in the April elections.

The Democratic Party, which has 20.6 percent of the votes according to the same tally, looks set to enter a coalition with the Islamic-oriented Prosperous Justice Party, or PKS, which has 8.15 percent of the votes.

Soemarsono said that all leaders of the parties wanting to take part in the coalition would meet to talk about a final agreement. Pramono said the meeting might be held as soon as Wednesday.

The meeting would also decide on who the coalition would back to run as the presidential and vice presidential candidates, Soemarsono added.

"Each party has decided on its own presidential candidate. But we know that not all of them can run in the presidential election. So there must be a willingness from the candidates to sit and talk together to decide that there will only be one possible name. We will know whose name that is in the next day or two," Pramono said.

Meanwhile, Democratic Party secretary general Marzuki Alie said the door was still open for a coalition with Golkar but spelled out conditions for accepting a vice presidential candidate from the party. "They must agree to establish a coalition with us and the vice presidential candidate must be chosen by us," Marzuki said.

Separately, Golkar chairman and Vice President Jusuf Kalla denied rumors of a rift in the party, saying that different views among party leaders were acceptable as long as they were based on the decisions of the party's recent special leadership meeting.