Lenny Tristia Tambun & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – With the Jakarta branch of the Great Indonesian Movement Party on Saturday announcing its nomination of party founder Prabowo Subianto as its presidential candidate for the 2014 election, questions have arisen about his ability to garner wider support.

While lawmakers are still negotiating the threshold required to make a bid for the presidency, many say the current 20 percent will be maintained, meaning any person intending to run needs support from a party or coalition of parties that gains at least 20 percent of the popular vote in the legislative election.

The party, known as Gerindra, said on Saturday that it aimed to secure 20 percent of the vote. But given that in the 2009 legislative election, the party won only 4.6 percent of the vote, achieving such a target was highly unlikely, analysts said.

"The vote distribution among major parties will mirror that of 2009. There will be no significant change," said Fachry Ali, a political expert with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

While most polls have placed Prabowo as a front-runner for 2014, ahead of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri, chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and former Vice President Jusuf Kalla, many noted that he could end up failing to qualify to run by not accumulating enough support.

Several months ago, Prabowo was nixed as Megawati's possible choice to represent the PDI-P in the presidential election. The PDI-P and Gerindra successfully joined forces in supporting Joko Widodo and Basuki Tjahaja Purnama as Jakarta's top officials in September.

But many said that Prabowo erred in glorifying his role in the Jakarta governor race and damaged his chances of being selected by Megawati. Though not mentioning Prabowo by name, the former president blasted "free riders" that took credit for Joko's election. Subsequently, the PDI-P refused Gerindra's plea to team up in the West Java gubernatorial election, leaving Prabowo's party uncertain who to support.

"It's all but finished," Megawati's close aide told Jakarta Globe on Sunday, referring to the two parties' partnership.

With the Golkar Party nominating its chairman, Aburizal Bakrie, Prabowo's last hope for a major party to back him is President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Democratic Party.

But Yudhoyono seemed reluctant to support the former general. Several analysts noted that he still could not put behind him a past military rivalry with Prabowo. "Pak SBY can't just forget the past," a source close to the president's inner circle said, referring to Yudhoyono.

Yudhoyono, the source said, would likely pick figures in his inner circle, such as Chief Economics Minister Hatta Rajasa or the current Army chief of staff Gen. Pramono Edhie Wibowo, the brother of his wife Ani.

The problem for Yudhoyono, analysts said, was that the two figures polled poorly in many surveys, far behind Prabowo. "SBY is facing a tough choice. Will he pick a sure loser or join the strongest?" Fachry said.

Yudhoyono is unable to run in 2014 due to term limits, and corruption scandals have damaged several potential internal Democratic candidates.