Megawati made the request in front of incumbent President and President-elect, Joko Widodo (Jokowi), during the opening ceremony at the PDIP's national congress at the Inna Bali Beach Resort in Bali Island on Thursday.
The opening ceremony of the three-day congress was also attended by Vice President, Jusuf Kalla; Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party leader, Prabowo Subianto; and Vice President-elect, Ma'ruf Amin.
Megawati, who is predicted to be reelected as the PDIP's top leader, said she did not want her party to be given just four ministerial posts, considering the fact that it won the parliamentary elections twice (2014 and 2019).
In response to Megawati's political move related to Jokowi's upcoming cabinet line-up, Chairman of the PKB's central executive board members, Abdul Kadir Karding, said PDIP's proposal was understandable and need not be challenged.
"If PDIP proposes that a lot of ministerial candidates be accommodated, I don't think it is a problem. It is understandable considering PDIP's victory in the parliamentary elections and, along with coalition parties, it worked hard to ensure Jokowi's victory for the second time," Karding said.
From the beginning, President-elect Jokowi welcomed people from coalition parties, civil society groups, and community figures to offer their inputs regarding the upcoming cabinet line-up.
"The question is whether or not all the proposed ministerial candidates will be accepted. This is indeed related to the president-elect's prerogative right," he argued.
Regarding the cabinet line-up issue, several coalition parties of the Jokowi-Amin pair have revealed their stance.
As the runner-up of the 2019 Parliamentary Elections, the Golkar party, for instance, does not want to rush in and has demanded ministerial posts in Jokowi's upcoming cabinet.
But the PKB and National Democratic Party (Nasdem) have also revealed their demands.
For Golkar, the president-elect will be allowed to decide how he intends to proportionally accommodate Golkar's cadres in his cabinet, Chairperson of the Golkar Party's Central Executive Board, Meutya Hafid, recently said.
The Golkar Party also trusts the president-elect to provide proportional berths to his coalition parties in the cabinet. "Mr. Jokowi also does know his needs regarding his cabinet line-up for his second presidential term," she had said.
Meanwhile, PKB leader, Muhaimin Iskandar, has proposed 10 names from his party to Jokowi but was unaware of who had been nominated to the cabinet, the PKB politician, Daniel Johan, said.
The names that Iskandar had proposed were different from those who might have been proposed by the Nahdlatul Ulama's (NU's) Central Executive Board despite the fact that the real supporters of both PKB and NU were relatively similar.
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EDITED BY INE
Translator: Prisisca TV, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2019
