PDI-P faces hard job in Bandarlampung mayoralty election

PDI-P faces hard job in Bandarlampung mayoralty election

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post/Bandarlampung

Kasman, 45, the chief of the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle's (PDI-P) Bandarlampung branch, has often got home late
during the past few days.

Kasman's mission is an unenviable one. He has been burdened
with the responsibility of organizing his party's candidate for
the upcoming mayoral race.

What makes his job harder than usual is that the PDI-P only
won six seats in the Bandarlampung municipal council in last
year's general election; below the minimum seven seats needed for
parties to put up mayoral candidates.

A seat short, the PDI-P has had to build a coalition with
other political parties in the city in order to meet the
threshold.

Building coalitions, Kasman has found, is not an easy task. In
November last year, the PDI-P joined forces with the Freedom Bull
National Party (PNBK) and the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS), which
had one seat each.

But, in December, the chiefs of both parties said they were
leaving the PDI-P alliance, and had chosen to build coalitions
with four other parties: the Reform Star Party (PBR), the United
Development Party (PPP), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the
National Awakening Party (PKB).

"I had doubted that they would support us. They often held
meetings with the four parties, and apparently they discussed
fielding candidates of their own," Kasman said.

The grouping had earlier accused the PDI-P of being overly
ambitious for trying to put up a candidate of its own, he said.

Ignoring the charge, Kasman intensively lobbied the party
bosses to support the PDI-P.

His efforts finally bore fruit after six parties, including
the PNBK and PDS, apparently came into the fold and expressed
their support for the PDI-P. "It will be a grand coalition that
will contest the three other big political parties nominating
their own candidates in the upcoming direct elections for the
head of regional governments," Kasman said.

The three big parties in question are the Golkar Party, which
won eight seats in the last year's election, the Democratic
Party, seven; and the Prosperous Justice Party, eight.

The grand coalition had been put to a test recently and it
triumphed against the three bigger parties.

"We won the vote during the election of the council leaders
recently. And we will repeat the success in the upcoming direct
election for the heads of regional governments," Kasman said.

But, Mahendra Utama, a local political analyst, doubted that
the grand coalition would work well, saying the coalition was a
fragile one.

"Every party in the coalition will have their own opinions
about the candidates they will support and it will lead to
potential conflicts. If they can not resolve the problem, the
coalition will break up," Mahendra said.

Given that fact, the PDI-P's road to election success was
still a long and windy one, he said.