The group of young people have expressed their disappointment with the political parties, with many corrupt representatives in the countrys parliament, Masykurudin said.
He said the success of the Friends of Ahok in gathering one million supporters for Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama alias Ahok to run as independent candidate to contest the next gubernatorial election in 2017, deserves high appreciation.
The Friends of Ahok are only a small group of young people, but they have done a big job of gathering more than 1 million identity cards (KTP) of supporters, he said.
"The young generation has an advantage of being closer to digitalization and access to information that the process of gathering supporters is easier, he said.
Friends of Ahok said so far they have gathered more than 1,024,632 supporters not far from the total votes of 1,231,843 garnered by PDIP, the ruling party that led in Jakarta in the last legislative election in 2014.
"The number of KTPs of supporters gathered by the Friends of Ahok exceeded the total votes of 592,568 for Gerindra in the legislative election and 452,224 for PPP," Masykurudin said.
The one million votes to be given by Ahok supporters are equivalent to 25 seats at the Jakarta city council (DPRD).
Masykurudin said the support is enough for a candidate to run without coalition with political parties.
Based on experience in regional elections political parties tended to pick elitist candidates and coalition is formed solely to seek victory regardless of the ideology.
"Political parties have little interest in grooming cadres representing the local people," he said.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2016
