Election 2014: Find The Best Candidate (SBY is Key Figur)

SBY and Prabowo

Indonesia will held presidential election next year. People are looking for the right candidates post president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). In the latest election in 2009, SBY won with nearly 70 percent vote.  He is the best for that period.

SBY has good characters; calm, expert in communication, tend to approach democratically, obey the law, and so on. In other hand, critics say SBY doesn’t have firm character although he is the soldier. Remember, no one is perfect. 

SBY has been leading this country for ten years. No chance for him to be elected again next year, by regulation. People must choose other candidates. It is not simple choice. A candidate needs 25 percent voter or 20 percent of legislative members, to follow the election. It means people have only maximum five candidates. Regulation doesn’t give chance for independent candidates in presidential election.

There are many achievements in SBY’s administration such as economic growth, political stability, and international recognition. There is not a new survey about electibility of SBY, because he has no chance for next year election. But Democratic Party’s electability tend to decline from around 17 percent last year to under ten percent today.

I still believe that SBY has fans. He has been President for ten years and only little resistance from few critics. He will still have influence next time. SBY has state man characters needed for reduce conflicts.

With the narrow space for candidacy, we will choose limited nominees. Surveys show that only few candidates have electability over ten percent personally, namely Aburizal, Megawati, Prabowo and  Jokowi. The other challengers like Hatta Rajasa, Wiranto, Dahlan Iskan, Pramono Edhie,  or Gita Wirjawan are standing on the second line.

Today, surveys indicate Jokowi is in the best position for presidential candidate. However, it is not the guarantee him to take the power due to it depend on Megawati's (PDIP Chief-Executive) decision.  If the Megawati say No for Jokowi, people will have to turn to the second shift nominees.

The party influence is very dominant to choose the candidates. For the reason, configuration of party will determine who will be chosen.  In my opinion, character of party will determine the decision.

Democrat Party will make decisive choice, whether ready to be the opposition. It depends on SBY's decision over what kind of the role that he wants to be. Today, Democrat has eleven candidates and one of them will be chosen the winner in the convention. SBY will choose the candidate who has biggest chance to face the other party’s contenders.

If the SBY will act as state man, Democrat is better entering in the power. It drives Democrat to affiliate with the coalition has big chance to win the election. It means that Democrat will not resistant to joint with PDIP although relation between SBY and Megawati is not very close. 

Probably, the election 2014 will run in two rounds. In an early election, there will be three coalitions, PDIP (Mega or Jokowi), Golkar (Aburizal), and other coalition. 

Democrat Party will be a golden boy in that situation. If Democrat gets votes 5 to 9 percent, it has strategic stand to choose the coalition. SBY's role will decide who will be the leader of the nation post 2014.

The other decisive person is Prabowo. Surveys show Prabowo's party, Gerindra, will catch vote around 7 percent. Personally, Prabowo has electability up to ten percent. He is the strong challenger for Jokowi. He can joint with Democrat and Islamic parties.

Islamic parties will gain little votes because very low popularity now. They don't have the same platform, and I can not hope they will joint together hand in hand making one decision for all. Party's interest will drive their choices. They will choose the coalition have big chance to win. They will count calculation first before affiliate the coalition. PKB (Nation Awakening Party) nominated the singer Rhoma Irama for president, but it is very hard to get votes around 20 percent as regulation required.

In the second round election, there are several scenarios but PDIP vs Golkar is the biggest probability, I think. If Jokowi will follow the election, Aburizal will be contender. In the normal situation, the Jokowi factor will drag many parties to make coalition. Other scenario is Jokowi versus Prabowo.

The real “war” has not been there. We cannot guarantee Jokowi still be strong facing attacks in the last minutes. Sometime the black horse will come in the abnormal condition. (Rihad Wiranto-Personal View)