Aburizal discusses coalition with Prabowo

JAKARTA. Golkar Party presidential hopeful Aburizal Bakrie discussed a possible coalition between Golkar and the Gerindra Party to win July’s presidential election in a meeting with the latter’s presidential candidate, Prabowo Subianto, on Monday.

“It’s a return visit as Pak Prabowo had visited [Aburizal’s home] last Tuesday,” Golkar's central executive board deputy secretary general, Lalu Mara, said on Monday as quoted by kompas.com.

Monday's meeting took place at Prabowo’s home in Bojong Koneng village, Hambalang, Bogor, West Java, at 11 a.m. local time.

Mara said he did not know the exact agenda being discussed in the meeting between the two party leaders. It was likely, however, that Aburizal and Prabowo discussed the current national political situation, he said.

Last Tuesday, Prabowo met with Aburizal to discuss coalition patterns ahead of this year's presidential election.

After the meeting, both leaders said they had agreed to communicate more closely in the future. They said they shared the opinion that pluralism in Indonesia could not be managed by only one party.

Based on quick counts, Golkar cannot nominate its own presidential candidate, having obtained only around 15 percent of the vote during April's legislative election, while Gerindra secured only around 12 percent of the vote. Both would need, therefore, to join forces with other parties to nominate a candidate to contest the presidential election. (gda/ebf)