REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Senior Golkar party politician Jusuf Kalla said here on Tuesday it would be difficult for Siti Hediati Hariyadi aka Titiek Soeharto to beat industry minister Airlangga Hartarto as the new chief of Golkar Party.

"All party members with minimally five years of experience as board members may run depending on their support. But we have seen so far most of support has gone to Airlangga and so it would not be easy to beat him," he said at his office in response to the wish of the daughter of former president Soeharto to seek Golkar Party leadership.

Titiek has expressed her wish to run for the position of general chairman of one of the major political parties in the country to replace Setya Novanto who has been put in the detention center by anti-graft agency KPK for alleged involvement in a corruption case.

She claimed she had already conducted communication with a number of provincial and district board members who will be the voters for the election to be held during the extraordinary national meeting later this month.

Kalla who is also the Indonesian Vice President said he had doubts her efforts would be fruitful because he thought provincial and district board members have already taken their stance to support Airlangga.

"However we appreciate Titiek's intention to run but provincial and district board members seemed to have taken a stance," he said.

Kalla has openly expressed his support to Airlangga by saying that he is one of the candidates with the least problems and has never had a case with KPK.

Airlangga has claimed that 34 provincial board members across Indonesia have supported him to run for Gokar leadership.

He also claimed to have support from three organizations that founded Golkar which are SOKSI, Kosgoro and MKGR. 

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