Jakarta – Democratic Party deputy chairman Rachland Nashidik says party chairman Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will go "all out" to campaign for the Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno presidential ticket in March 2019, a month before the presidential election.
"Maybe [the Gerindra Party] does not know this yet, but SBY will be on the field to campaign for Prabowo in March 2019," Rachland said on Sunday as quoted by tempo.co.
Prabowo said in September that Yudhoyono was going to campaign for the ticket, but the former president had yet to appear at any Prabowo-Sandiaga campaign events.
The Dems' commitment to support Prabowo has been called into question recently, with party executives saying that their focus is on winning the legislative elections, which will take place concurrently with the presidential election. Rachland said Yudhoyono's focus on his own party should be understandable.
"Democrats don't have our own presidential or vice presidential candidate, so we don't get a coattail effect from the presidential election. We have no choice but to fight for our own party first." he said. "So please respect our efforts to fight for votes for our party. This is a coalition, not fusion; it doesn't mean that if we support [Prabowo] that we all merge into one."
He added that there were still six months left in the campaign period, which left plenty of time for Yudhoyono to take part. "If we campaign now, people will forget anyway, so we'll take part in the final part of the campaign period instead," he said. (kmt/ipa)