Workers check the quality of ballot papers for the 2024 legislative election on Jan 9, 2024, at the Kendari Elections Commission in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi. - Antara
JAKARTA: A government led by presumptive presidential election winner Prabowo Subianto looks increasingly likely to face stiff opposition from presumptive legislative election winner the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), according to an early mapping of House of Representatives seats.
Official results are not due until March 20, but unofficial results from various quick counts show that Prabowo and running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka won a comfortable lead ahead of rivals former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and PDI-P politician Ganjar Pranowo in the race on Feb 14.
Prabowo’s Gerindra Party however placed third in the legislative election behind coalition partner the Golkar Party and the rival PDI-P, the presumptive winner. Having claimed that the presidential election was marred with large-scale fraud, the PDI-P has hinted at its intention to play an opposition role to a Prabowo-led administration.
“If the PDI-P decides to go through with it, I’d say the party will be a tough opposition to the [incoming] government,” Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) political department head Arya Fernandes said on Sunday (Deb 25).
“The PDI-P already has a track record of this during the tenure of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono [president from 2004 to 2014].”
A quick count by the Cyrus Network and CSIS projected the PDI-P to win 16.46 per cent of the vote, while Prabowo’s Gerindra party won 13.91 per cent.
Preliminary data from the General Elections Commission’s (KPU) vote tabulating platform Sirekap also showed a similar percentage for the PDI-P, at 16.57 per cent.
By Sunday afternoon, Sirekap data recorded the ballots from 64 per cent of the total 832,000 polling stations nationwide.
Given that Golkar is closely behind the PDI-P, Arya said there was a possibility for Golkar to end up the biggest party at the House if it managed to win in more electoral districts than the PDI-P.
Golkar placed second in both the CSIS quick count and the preliminary Sirekap tally with 15.14 and 15.05 per cent of the vote, respectively, a significant improvement on its showing during the 2019 legislative election when it won 12.31 per cent of the vote.
Golkar members have attributed the party’s electoral success to chair Airlangga Hartarto and his decision to join the alliance backing Prabowo in the presidential race. This was despite the fact that Airlangga’s leadership was challenged by a few senior Golkar politicians in July last year.
“Golkar’s bump in votes is down to a couple of factors, including [Airlangga’s] leadership, which succeeded in uniting the party’s internal factions,” Arya said, adding that the party was also shrewd in its use of campaign materials to target young voters.
In fourth place in the preliminary Sirekap data and in the CSIS quick count is the National Awakening Party (PKB), whose chairman Muhaimin Iskandar contested the presidential election as Anies’ running mate.
The PKB is closely followed by the NasDem Party in fifth and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) in sixth place. They are the two other legislature parties backing Anies, the candidate who aligned himself closest to change and portrayed himself as the antithesis to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
All three parties in the Anies camp have so far remained tight-lipped regarding their stances on a Prabowo administration, choosing instead to focus their efforts on preparing to lodge an election dispute at the Constitutional Court.
A meeting between Jokowi and NasDem chair Surya Paloh, however, has led experts to believe that a reconciliation between the party and Prabowo’s camp could be on the cards.
"The only party that could seriously be considered as an opposition party [to a Prabowo administration] is the PDI-P – and possibly the PKS,” analyst Kennedy Muslim of pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia said.
“But given the PKS’ long ties with Prabowo, he might be able to lure [it into his coalition].”
The PKS has said it has yet to decide its position.
The National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Democratic Party, which backed Prabowo’s presidential bid, are the last two parties that passed the electoral threshold of 4 per cent of the national vote to be able to send representatives to the House, according to the CSIS quick count.
This means the United Development Party’s (PPP) future in the House is shaky, with the party having secured just 3.54 per cent in the CSIS quick count result – although gaining votes slightly above the threshold so far in the preliminary Sirekap tally, at 4.04 per cent.
The PPP supported the PDI-P’s Ganjar in the presidential race. Meanwhile, the Indonesia Solidarity Party (PSI), one of the non-legislature parties in Prabowo’s camp, looks increasingly likely to fail in making it to the House, having won just 2.65 per cent in Sirekap and 2.67 per cent of the vote in CSIS quick count.
The Prabowo-Gibran camp was not immediately available for comment. But earlier it had suggested that it would be open to governing alongside other parties outside of its electoral alliance. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
