Indonesia’s Prabowo to ‘expand wings of coalition’ with ‘attractive offers’ to former rivals
- The biggest challenge for president-elect Prabowo Subianto will be in persuading the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) to join his coalition
- It may be difficult to coax PDI-P to join the coalition due to animosity between former leader Megawati Sukarnoputri and current president Joko Widodo
Analysts believe Prabowo is likely to form a grand coalition with minimal opposition, an outcome that would accelerate his legislative agenda, but potentially erode the country’s democracy due to a lack of checks on his power.
Widodo has been accused of intervening in the election and throwing his tacit support behind Prabowo, whose running mate, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, is the president’s eldest son.
After his victory was made official, the 74-year-old former general gave a speech calling for unity “to achieve the ideals that our nation hopes for.”
“But after this, the people demanded that all leadership elements must work together. We must collaborate to bring goodness, to bring prosperity, to eliminate poverty, to eliminate hunger, to eliminate corruption in the Indonesian nation,” he said.
The National Democratic Party (Nasdem), which had supported Anies in the election and won 10 per cent of the vote, was the first to confirm it was ready to join Prabowo’s coalition, with Nasdem chief Surya Paloh telling reporters his party was prepared to offer its “full support” after he met with the president-elect on Thursday.