TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - It took seven months for Prabowo Subianto to answer calls from party cadres for him to step forward as a presidential candidate. Back in October 2017, Gerindra cadres had asked Prabowo to declare his candidacy for the presidency. However, the Gerindra General Chair remained non-committal.

On Wednesday two weeks ago, Prabowo finally stated he was ready to run if asked to do so by the party. According to Gerindra Secretary-General Ahmad Muzani, Prabowo needed time to think before saying so. Prabowo has already run and lost in two presidential elections. This does not include the time he was eliminated in the Golkar Party convention for presidential candidates back in 2004.

Together with some people close to him, Prabowo talked about public support and the political parties which intend to back his presidential bid. In the House of Representatives (DPR), Gerindra only has 73 seats, 39 less than the number needed to field their own presidential ticket. Another question was: Are there enough funds? said Ahmad Muzani, on Wednesday last week.

Muzani said a massive amount of funding is needed to run in a presidential election. Funds to pay for vote-counting witnesses at voting stations alone can cost hundreds of billions of rupiah. In the 2014 General Election, there were 545,803 voting locations (TPS). The General Election Commission (KPU) predicts that next year the number will rise to 800,000. Muzani estimates there could be as many as 900,000 TPS.

According to Muzani, Gerindra will likely station two witnesses at each TPS: one to monitor the legislative election and another for the presidential election. Gerindra needs roughly 1.8 million witnesses. "The question is, is there enough logistical support?" said Muzani.

Muzani outlined the need for funds for election witnesses. Each witness will be given Rp250,000 for the cost of food alone. If there are 1.8 million witnesses, the financial need for the election day is Rp450 billion. That figure, said Muzani, does not include the cost of training them. "This figure is for a minimum standard," he said.

Those funds do not include operational campaign costs. How much will that amount to? No one is speaking openly about this item. Six years ago, Gerindra Board of Patrons deputy chair Hashim Djojohadikusumo joked by saying he had prepared Rp100 trillion for his older brother's campaign. "The point is that it's a lot of money, and enough to win," said Hashim at that time.

A member of Prabowo's campaign team from the 2014 General Election said a pair of presidential running mates needs to reserve at least Rp6 trillion. This is to cover the cost of witnesses, campaign logistics, media ads, and campaign team costs. Nevertheless, this total figure is never officially stated. In a 2014 campaign fund report, Prabowo reported donations of Rp166.6 billion. His opponents, the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla ticket, reported funds of Rp312 billion.

Muzani said Gerindra cadres are more prepared to campaign for Prabowo in this election.

Read the full article in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine