PAN against blocks of nationalist and religion-based parties

"Creating blocks of nationalist and religious parties is a wrong concept. How could we develop the nation if we still allow ourselves divided into such coalitions?" Chairman of National Election Committee of PAN Joncik Muhammad said.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Chairman of National Election Committee of the National Mandate Party (PAN) Joncik Muhammad expressed concern with the scheme to divide political parties between coalitions of nationalists and Islamic parties.

"Creating blocks of nationalist and religious parties is a wrong concept. How could we develop the nation if we still allow ourselves divided into such coalitions?" Joncik said here on Wednesday.

The country has carried out legislative elections with nationalist based parties garnering around 67 percent of the votes and Islamic parties 33 percent.

There have been calls for Islamic parties including PAN, PKB, PKS and PPP to join force and name a presidential candidate to contest the presidency in July, 2014.

The nationalist parties , led by opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) with 19 percent of the vote, Golkar 15 percent and Gerindra 12 percent, already named their respective presidential candidates.

The three, however, still need to coalesce with smaller parties to meet the minimum 20 percent votes to be able to contest the presidency.

Joncik said PAN would not allow itself to fall headlong into the discourse of coalition of Islamic parties, adding PAN chose to be realistic in accepting coalition with parties sharing a similar vision and mission.

Currently PAN is intensive in studying possible coalition with PDIP and Gerindra, he said.

PANs bargaining position is to propose Hatta Rajasa, the chief economics minister in the present government, to be the vice presidential candidate.

"Hatta as the vice presidential candidate is a price the least we would accept. Who is better than Hatta. He has proved himself well in the cabinet," he said.

PAN is a member of the coalition government under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with his Democratic Party, which suffered big losses in the legislative election last week.

He said if PAN is to coalesce with PDIP or Gerindra , more parties would be needed to join in to ensure that the next government will have enough support from the parliament.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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