Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The state leadership duet of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla may end in October 2009 if the Golkar Party maintains its lead in the upcoming general elections, politicians and an analyst said Friday.
Priyo Budi Santoso, chairman of the Golkar faction at the House of Representatives, said Kalla would be Yudhoyono's running mate only if Golkar was defeated in the election or Kalla quit the party, a decision he would be unlikely to make.
Kalla is chairman of the Golkar Party, while Yudhoyono is the patron of the Democratic Party.
Priyo said Golkar was committed to maintaining the pair until 2009 but would hold an internal convention to determine its presidential candidate.
"If Golkar wins the next legislative election, it will nominate its own presidential and vice presidential candidates or form a coalition with other major parties to nominate saleable presidential and vice presidential candidates," he said in a discussion here Friday.
Sutan Batoegana, a legislator from the Democratic Party, asked the Indonesian people to give the President a chance to address major national problems in his last two years in office and said that Yudhoyono would seek reelection.
Maswadi Rauf, a political analyst at the University of Indonesia, and deputy secretary general of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Sutradara Gintings both agreed that the Yudhoyono-Kalla government was ineffective because Yudhoyono had little political support in the House of Representatives, while Golkar, as the major supporting party of the government, did not have a proportional number of seats in the Cabinet.
"(The President) has political difficulties forming an effective government because his Democratic Party only has 10 percent of the 550 seats in the House, while his supporting parties have halfheartedly supported the government," said Maswadi.
Sutradara said he doubted PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri would run the next presidential election as she had already been the country's first woman president and vice president. She was defeated in the last presidential election and had no strategic national reasons to run, he said.
"Although many PDI-P chapters have asked about her readiness to be nominated as a presidential candidate during the party meeting in Bali in March, she has yet to give her response," he said.
Under the multi-party system, where even major parties won only around 20 percent of seats, the PDI-P would have to form coalition with other major parties to win the presidential election and form an effective government, he said.
Maswadi stressed the importance of implementing a strict verification of political parties taking part in the next legislative election and of regulating the formation of coalitions in order to achieve a simple multi-party system and produce a strong government.
"Strict verification of political parties will result in only seven parties being eligible for the legislative election and this will provide a major chance for the formation of an effective government with a strong opposition," he said.