PKS Mulls Three Options to Face Presidential Elections, Aher Says

TEMPO.CO, Bandung - West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan said the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) was mulling over three options to face the upcoming presidential race. The three options, he added, were establishing a coalition with the PKS proposing a vice presidential candidate, establishing a coalition without it proposing a vice presidential contender, and becoming an opposition.

“I think most likely the party will establish a coalition with the party offering its vice presidential hopeful, I mean the candidate will come from the PKS,” said the governor, popularly known as Aher, said in Bandung on Monday, April 14, 2014.

Aher said the vice presidential candidates the PKS would propose to its political allies would be one of the three presidential candidates the party had announce earlier: former PKS chair Hidayat Nur Wahid, current PKS chief Anis Matta, or himself.

“The vote tallies of all political parties have been revealed. Of course all parties would make a realistic move based on the vote results, including the PKS,” he said.

After the official results of the parliamentary elections were revealed, he opined, several political axes would probably offering coalitions to the PKS, including those from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), the Golkar Party, or the Democrat Party.

Aher also said he was ready should the PKS appoint him as the vice presidential candidate for other parties. “In the context of assignment, I must be ready,” he said. 

AHMAD FIKRI