Jakarta – Mohamad Taufik, the head of Gerindra's Jakarta chapter, has criticized the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) for hesitating to conduct a screening for its deputy governor candidates.
The two parties, which backed Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno during the gubernatorial election last year, had agreed to conduct the screening before submitting the candidates' names to the City Council to replace Sandiaga, who resigned to run as a vice presidential candidate for Gerindra's leader Prabowo Subianto in the upcoming election.
"So what does [the PKS] want? Do they want to directly propose two names? So convenient. We actually agreed to conduct a fit and proper test and the candidates would be from them anyway," Taufik said as quoted by kompas.com on Monday.
The Jakarta's Council deputy speaker also noted that the screening was a normal procedure and that the same mechanism had applied to Sandiaga when he announced his intentions to be a deputy governor candidate. "To us it [the screening] is important,' he added.
PKS faction head at the City Council Abdurahman Suhaimi previously said that such a test was "not important" and it would only undermine the party's capability in selecting the proper candidates to fill the vacant post. (fac)