Akbar denies Golkar will
join Jokowi-Kalla

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Election Watch | Sun, July 13 2014, 8:06 PM

Golkar Party advisory council chairman Akbar Tandjung denied widespread rumors that there was an option for his party to jump ship and move its support from Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa to Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Jusuf Kalla.
“We have signed a declaration of a permanent coalition to support Prabowo-Hatta. It is a sign of our full endorsement of the candidate pair. We have the motivation to maintain our commitment for the next five years,” he said as quoted by tempo.co on Sunday.
Akbar said the permanent coalition was established to strengthen and optimize the Prabowo-Hatta administration should the candidate pair win the election based on the General Elections Commission (KPU) official vote tally, which will be announced on July 22.
Akbar further said he was optimistic that Prabowo-Hatta would win the election, even though the majority of pollsters’ quick counts favored Jokowi-Kalla.
“A number of pollsters said Prabowo-Hatta’s electability was above their rivals. We can confirm this once the KPU announces the official result,” he added.
It was previously reported that several Golkar politicians, including party deputy chairman Agung Laksono, were disappointed that most credible survey institutions put the Jokowi-Kalla ticket in the lead.
A quick count conducted by the Cyrus Network and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) showed that Jokowi-Kalla led Prabowo-Hatta, 47.17 percent to 42.15 percent.
Golkar politician Nusron Wahid said there was talk of unseating chairman Aburizal Bakrie for his decision to support Prabowo. If successful, Golkar would likely join the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and its coalition partners, the NasDem Party, the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Hanura Party, in the ruling government.
With Golkar in the coalition, a Jokowi administration would have the majority of seats in the House of Representatives. (gda/ebf)