Akbar wins full backing of party board
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Golkar's presidential convention will not take place until Tuesday, but Akbar Tandjung has already secured the full backing of the party's Central Executive Board (DPP).
Six days before party leaders and other members pick their flag-bearer for the July 5 direct presidential election, the DPP jumped the gun on Thursday and announced they would back Akbar.
"We have agreed to vote for Akbar during the convention because he has been able to increase our party's votes (in the legislative election)," party deputy leader Mahadi Sinambela announced on Thursday.
Golkar, the political machine of former autocrat Soeharto, is leading the provisional tally of votes in the April 5 legislative election. With some 70 percent of the vote counted, Golkar has 20.96 percent of the votes, just ahead of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) at 19.73 percent.
The DPP's backing, however, does not necessarily mean a win in the April 20 presidential convention, which has six presidential hopefuls vying for the top spot, but it could influence the vote of undecided members.
Under convention rules, the Golkar DPP accounts for just 18 votes, while regental branches (DPD II) and provincial chapters account for 440 and 96 votes respectively.
Mahadi admitted that the DPP support would not automatically guarantee a win for Akbar, but stressed that fellow party leaders wanted Akbar to defeat other candidates -- former military chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto, media baron Surya Paloh, former Army Strategic Reserves (Kostrad) commander Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto, businessman Aburizal Bakrie and Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla.
The result of the preconvention series last October ended with Aburizal ranked first, followed by Surya, Wiranto, Akbar, Kalla, Prabowo and Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, who quit the race shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Akbar's corruption conviction in February.
Some party leaders insinuated that the regental branches and provincial chapters had backed away from Akbar because of his corruption conviction, which was still on appeal to the Supreme Court at that time.
Meanwhile, convention chairman Slamet Effendy Yusuf said on Thursday that committee members were still discussing whether to extend the convention to a second round of voting or not.
He also explained some of the steering committee's curious regulations for the actual vote. One was that they could not take cameras into the voting booth, "because it could compromise secrecy".
However, the committee requires that regental and provincial chapter delegates be accompanied by their chapter chiefs inside the polling booth to make sure they vote the right way.
"It is designed to keep the mandate of the regional chapters. The policies are designed to prevent money politics," he explained.
Slamet emphasized that all six presidential candidates had committed to supporting the Golkar Party, regardless of the Tuesday's outcome.
He said that all candidates had agreed that they would not accept offers from other political parties to become their presidential candidates should they lose on Tuesday.
However, any of Golkar's presidential candidates may accept an offer from other parties to become the running mate of another presidential candidate.