Jakarta – The recently formed National Democratic (NasDem) party said it would garner at least 21 percent of the votes in the 2014 legislative election, more than the ruling Democratic Party won in 2009.

Chairman of the NasDem party, Rio Patrice Capelo, said the amount of votes would translate into at least 154 seats at the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party won 20.9 percent of the votes in the 2009 election.

Rio said that NasDem could meet the target given its heavy presence throughout the country. "Out of around 75,000 villages in the country, we have a presence in 60 percent of them," Rio said as quoted by tempo.co.

Earlier, Rio had said that 37 active lawmakers were ready to abandon ship and join the NasDem bandwagon for the 2014 legislative election. The party is also aiming to boost the electability of its legislative candidates, by giving each one between Rp 5 billion (US$530,000) and Rp 10 billion to finance their political bids in the 2014 election.