Rizky Amelia – The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) announced on Sunday that it had whittled down to five contenders the selection pool for the party's 2014 presidential nomination.

"We have held a plenary meeting," said PKS secretary general Taufik Ridho. "The results come from 22 names that we supported. The top five are: M. Hidayat Nur Wahid, M. Anis Matta, Ahmad Heryawan, Tifatul Sembiring and Nur Mahmudi Ismail."

Taufik said the names were chosen in an internal party election (Pemira) across 33 provinces. Pemira result showed that Hidayat received 55,670 votes, Anis – the PKS chairman – received 48,153, West Java governor Ahmad received 46,014, Information and Telecommunication minister Tifatul recieved 31,714 and Depok mayor Nur Mahmudi received 20,429.

Although Hidayat emerged as the frontrunner, Taufik said that the party's Consultative Council (Majelis Syuro) would make the final decision.

"The Majelis Syuro will choose one, three or five candidates to be announced for public approval [in Janurary]," he said. The PKS would not speculate about whether or not their nominee could wind up as a vice presidential candidate, Taufik said.

The results might also serve as a bargaining tool for coalition building in the run-up to the July 2014 elections.

The party said previously that it would not conduct a Pemira and wouldn't announce its candidate until after the legislative elections, but decided to hold one after all due to internal encouragement.

"We were in the fourth position [in the 2009 general elections], Taufik said, "If other parties dare to [run presidential candidate selections] why can't we too?"