Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of the Golkar Party (or at least one version of it), said that his party and the entire Merah Putih Coalition (KMP) will now support the government of President Joko Widodo.
KMP, which was formed by losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto during the last elections, has until now acted as an opposition group to President Jokowi’s Great Indonesian Coalition (KIH).
Bakrie said KMP would support Jokowi’s administration until his term ends in 2019, at which point he said KMP would elect their own presidential candidate to challenge Jokowi in the next election.
“So I feel after a discussion with our friends in KMP, yes, we support Jokowi. Then in 2019 we can compete,” Bakrie told Detik at his residence in Menteng, Central Jakarta, on Saturday night.
Bakrie said he and KMP officials were frequently in communication with Jokowi about a number of issues in Indonesia, such as poverty reduction.
If KMP were in fact to give their full support to Jokowi and KIH, it could potentially mean a huge change in the political landscape of national politics and give the president (and, by virtue of his party affiliations, PDI-P chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri) an enormous amount of power.
However, with Bakrie’s position within his own party still quite tenuous, we’re going to wait until we hear from a few more KMP officials before we start believing any of this.
