REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Former Indonesian Army (TNI-AD) chief of staff who is also member of Democratic Party's Board of Trustees, Pramono Edhie Wibowo, cited three options for the party's coalition. He said that after meeting Political Advisor to Japanese Embassy, Naoyuki Shintani, recently.
"We found unexpected result at the 2014 general election. Democratic Party must form a coalition to nominate its presidential candidate. It was beyond our expectation," Wibowo said.
A new party can submit its own candidate if receives at least 20 percent of national votes in legislative election. Democratic party as the ruling party dropped out of the big three with 9.60 percent of votes.
Among three option, Democratic Party can build a coalition with one of three biggest parties without submitting its own presidential candidate. The next option, the party can build coalition with smaller parties to form the fourth axis coalition then submit its own presidential candidate. While in the last option, Democratic Party will stay in the government if the party wins either using first or second option. But the party is ready to take opposition aide if it loses.