Coalition Golkar and PD? Aburizal Bakrie & Pramono Edhie Wibowo

As no single Indonesian political party was able to secure 25 percent of the vote in the legislative election (which was held on 9 April 2014), parties need to form a coalition to meet the 25 percent threshold in order to be allowed to nominate a presidential and vice-presidential candidate (both run as a fixed inseparable pair) who will join the presidential election on 9 July 2014.

In the last couple of days things have become more clear. First of all, the coalition PDI-P, NasDem, and PKB was officially declared earlier this week. This coalition supports highly popular jakarta Governor Joko "Jokowi" Widodo as its presidential candidate. However, his running mate remains a question mark.

Gerindra - the political vehicle of Prabowo Subianto - forms a coalition with the Islamic parties PAN, PPP, and PKS. Subianto, the second most popular presidential candidate according to most popularity surveys, is the coalition's presidential candidate. Chairman of the PAN, Hatta Rajasa, will be his running mate. Earlier this week, Rajasa stepped down from his post as Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs to focus on his bid for vice-president.

Previously, it was reported that Golkar had several meetings with Gerindra and the PDI-P to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition with one of these parties. However, today (17/05), news spread that Golkar and PD (the party of Indonesian President Yudhoyono) will form a coalition. Indonesian newspaper Kompas quoted Indonesian Industry Minister MS Hidayat saying "on Friday evening (16/05) it was proposed that Golkar and PD will form a coalition which will back Aburizal Bakrie and Pramono Edhie Wibowo as its presidential and vice-presidential candidates. However, both parties still need to discuss the matter internally."

Indonesian Legislative Election 2014:

	Percentage	Absolute
PDI-P	18.95%	23,681,471
Golkar	14.75%	18,432,312
Gerindra	11.81%	14,760,371
PD	10.19%	12,728,913
PKB	9.04%	11,298,957
PAN	7.59%	9.481.621
PKS	6.79%	8,480,204
NasDem	6.72%	8,402,812
PPP	6.53%	8,157,488
Hanura	5.26%	6,579,498
PBB	1.46%	1,825,750
PKPI	0.91%	1,143,094