Yerica Lai and Fikri Harish, Jakarta – The National Awakening Party (PKB) has played down the recent meeting between Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto and East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa, despite speculations that the former military general was looking for an alternative candidate to PKB leader Muhaimin Iskandar.
The PKB and Gerindra have forged an alliance for 2024 and agreed to endorse Prabowo as their presidential candidate, but the latter has yet to agree to the former's demand that its leader, Muhaimin, be nominated as Prabowo's running mate.
During his working visit to Surabaya, East Java, on Monday, Prabowo invited Khofifah, a PKB politician, to dinner, drawing speculation that he was in search of a more electable running mate other than Muhaimin.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Prabowo showered Khofifah with praise, saying that he "learned a lot from her about Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and its history" and "[sees] her as a highly capable figure on the national level".
The Gerindra-backed presidential candidate admitted that while they merely touched upon the subject of the 2024 presidential election during the meeting, Prabowo said that they would "discuss the issue when the time is right".
It was the second meeting between Prabowo and Khofifah over the past year. Prabowo, who now serves as defense minister, paid a visit to Khofifah during his high-profile "political safari" during the Idul Fitri holiday last year meeting with prominent figures in East Java.
Prabowo has since continued to forge closer ties with NU's base, paying visits and having lunch with several NU senior clerics in Surabaya in East Java in late December 2022, some of whom later gave blessings to Prabowo's political aspirations in 2024.
As the biggest Islamic organization in the country, NU remains influential among the Indonesian populace, especially in East Java where it was founded in 1926. In the last two elections, Prabowo lost a significant number of votes to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in the region, and the defense minister aims to rectify that mistake for 2024.
'Regular meeting'
PKB chairman Muhaimin Iskandar said on Wednesday that he "was not aware" of the meeting between Prabowo and Khofifah, but stressed that he did not fret over whether the two figures were possibly exploring ways of working together in the 2024 presidential race.
Other PKB politicians have also expressed a similar sentiment.
Syaiful Huda, PKB's deputy secretary-general and a Muhaimin loyalist, described the meeting as a "silaturahmi [regular meeting]" and part of efforts to invite Khofifah as a working partner to the Gerindra-PKB alliance.
"We have a dictum in our charter in which the spirit is to broaden the coalition, including inviting more parties and figures to strengthen the alliance," Huda said on Tuesday.
Huda stressed that naming Muhaimin as a presidential candidate was "non-negotiable" as it was the mandate of the PKB's congress, adding that Prabowo "has been well aware" of the party's stance.
Gerindra has formed a coalition with the PKB, which counts some NU figures as its founders and continues to be traditionally associated with the organization, dubbed the Great Indonesia Awakening Coalition (KKIR). It remains unclear, however, if the KKIR, will crumble.
Potential break up
Ujang Komarudin, political analyst from Indonesia Political Review, described Prabowo and Khofifah's meeting as an "important get together" to take stock of potential candidates to be his running mate who will boost his electoral appeal in 2024.
Not naming Muhaimin as Prabowo's running mate, Ujang added, however, would open the possibility of the Muslim-based PKB to "find other alliance or back another presidential and vice-presidential candidate that have a higher chance of winning the election".
A survey from the Populi Center released on Monday asking respondents which vice presidential candidate they would vote for in 2024 placed Khofifah sixth among 11 candidates. The senior politician received 6.2 percent of the votes, lagging behind West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil with 22.4 percent but still ahead of Muhaimin, who received merely 1.6 percent of the votes. (ahw)
Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2023/02/15/pkb-plays-down-prabowo-khofifah-meeting.htm