Jakarta – Prabowo Subianto has expressed his readiness to run for president in 2014, joining the likes of Aburizal Bakrie and Hatta Rajasa, who have also declared their intention to run.
The Great Indonesia Movement Party's (Gerindra) chief patron, Prabowo, said that he would garner all available support, not just from his party's strong coalition with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
"I have a good relationship with the PDI-P, but I will ask for support from all available parties," he said during his visit to Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, on Sunday.
Prabowo said that he had finally decided to be a presidential nominee because he had received strong support from Gerindra's Regional Executive Board (DPD). Following Prabowo's statement, the PDI-P appeared cautious about revealing its stance on whether it would support Prabowo, or not, and in what way.
TB Hasanudin of the PDI-P confirmed that Gerindra and the PDI-P had been maintaining good communication. However, he said that his party had been busy working on current issues and felt that the presidential election was still too far away to focus on.
"Everything is still up in the air, so now we are just monitoring what is happening. If we make an untimely maneuver then the public might get confused," he told The Jakarta Post over the telephone.
Based on the PDI-P's latest national congress, the party has yet to choose a presidential candidate. Speculation was rife that the PDI-P's hopefuls would be its chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri or her daughter Puan Maharani.
Meanwhile, several strong political figures such as Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie and National Mandate Party chairman Hatta Rajasa, who has family ties with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, have already entered the race.
Other names, such as Constitutional Court Chief Justice Mahfud MD, former finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and State-Owned Enterprise Minister Dahlan Iskan have also been tipped as potential candidates.
Recently, a survey conducted by the Developing Countries Studies Center (DCSC) Indonesia tried to gauge the popularity of the candidates.
Hatta Rajasa is the most popular presidential candidate in the media, according to that survey. The survey said that Hatta had received the most publicity in the seven top national newspapers in the country compared to the other eight names last year.
"Hatta Rajasa got the most media exposure compared to the other eight aspirants," center director Abdul Hakim M.South said in Jakarta on Saturday. "Hatta was in 32.7 percent of the 7,476 articles we analyzed," he added.
The eight other aspirants comprise Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum, who had 16.7 percent of the total publicity, Aburizal Bakrie (15.5 percent), Megawati Soekarnoputri (10.2 percent), First Lady Ani Yudhoyono (6.7 percent), Prabowo Subianto (4.6 percent) and Sri Mulyani Indrawati (4.2 percent).
The two others are Yogyakarta governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X (5.7 percent), and NasDem party founder Surya Paloh (3.7 percent).
Almost all of the candidates have been very open to the idea of forming coalitions with other political parties, including Prabowo, who said that he had opened the door to a coalition with any party provided that they had the same vision and mission.
Indonesian Institute of Sciences political expert Siti Zuhro said that presidential candidates should have the same ideology, perspectives and programs as their potential coalition partners. (rpt, swd)