September 11, 2024
JAKARTA – President-elect Prabowo Subianto appeared intent to forge warmer ties with Megawati Soekarnoputri as he hopes to have a sit down with the backer-turned-archnemesis of outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo amid signs of a rift between Prabowo and his predecessor.
“God willing, the meeting [between Prabowo and Megawati] will happen before the incoming president’s inauguration next month,” Ahmad Muzani, the secretary-general of Prabowo’s Gerindra Party, said on Monday.
The renewed plan came after Muzani, who serves as deputy speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), encountered Megawati on Monday at an MPR event that denounced accusations that her father Sukarno had protected the now-defunct communist movement.
After winning the February election with the help of Jokowi’s popularity and political influence, Prabowo has lured several political parties that were behind his two election rivals into his fold. The president-elect has now secured a majority in the legislature with all but one of nine political parties in the House of Representatives having declared their support for the incoming president.
Only Megawati’s party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which is poised to retain the House speakership after winning the largest share of House seats in February, has yet to decide whether it will support or oppose the Prabowo administration.
The PDI-P is Jokowi’s former sponsor and parted ways with the outgoing President over his tacit support for Prabowo rather than the PDI-P’s own candidate in February’s election.
Signs of warmer ties between Prabowo and Megawati, however, came to a head last week at a Gerindra event, which was attended by Jokowi and representatives from pro-Prabowo parties.
Prabowo said in his speech at the time that Megawati and her daughter Puan Maharani, who is up for renomination for the House speakership in the new legislature, had sent him warm regards despite not being able to attend.
Efforts to maintain friendly ties between Prabowo and Megawati appeared to gain momentum again on Monday when Gerindra and PDI-P leaders exchanged greetings with each other through their close aides, as revealed by Muzani after his encounter with Megawati.
“Bu Megawati gave her regards to Pak Prabowo and Pak Prabowo also conveyed his respectful greetings to her,” Muzani said.
While acknowledging that various topics would be discussed during an upcoming meeting between Prabowo and Megawati, Puan gave a non-committal answer when asked whether the two chairpersons would discuss the possibility of the PDI-P becoming part of Prabowo’s government.
“There will be a meeting, God willing. Whether they will discuss such matters, we will just have to wait,” Puan said.
The renewed plan for a Prabowo-Megawati meeting came amid speculations about rifts between Jokowi and Prabowo following nationwide protests against an attempt by parties allied with them to change election rules to allow Jokowi’s youngest son Kaesang Pangarep to run for regional office in November.
Analysts have said that whether the PDI-P will join the incoming government will hinge on how much influence Prabowo will allow Jokowi to have after he leaves office.
The House and government agreed on Tuesday to revise a law regulating the Presidential Advisory Board (Wantimpres) to remove the board from the authority of the sitting president so that it is entirely independent from the executive branch, and to remove a limit on the number of council members. Wantimpres advises the sitting president on daily administration.
Under the bill, the Wantimpres chairman position will rotate between board members.
The revision came after a Prabowo aide floated in April a plan to establish a so-called “presidents club” comprised of the country’s sitting and living former presidents as a forum for them to exchange views and ideas on strategic national issues.