REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PALEMBANG -- Gerindra is busy meeting the requirements needed for the party to be able to nominate its general chairman, Prabowo Subianto, as its candidate for the presidential election next year, Secretary General Ahmad Muzani said. Muzani said that Gerindra now has 73 seats in the House of Representatives, and it still needs 39 more seats to be able to nominate a presidential candidate.

"So we must be able to meet the requirement first, and only after that will we be able to discuss about a vice presidential candidate," he stated when asked about Prabowo's potential running mate.

Prabowo, who is a former army general, had recently expressed his readiness to be nominated by his party to run for president again in the election next year. He lost to Jokowi in the last election in 2014. Jokowi, on the other hand, has also expressed his readiness to seek his reelection, and so the next election could be a rematch between the two figures.

Regarding the prospect of Prabowo's victory in the South Sumatra province, Muzani remarked that in the last presidential election in 2014, Prabowo had won a small margin.

"We hope that with the party being strengthened through consolidation so far from branches up to the provincial levels, God willing, Prabowo's victory prospect in 2019 will be brighter if its candidate for the province's next governor wins in the election later this year," he pointed out.

He hoped that Gerindra's candidate, Aseari Rivai, would win to become the next governor of South Sumatra, and the party will win more seats in the regional legislative assembly to make Prabowo's victory in the region significant.

Muzani stated that he must meet the promises that he had made during campaigning, because promises are debts that must be paid.

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