The Trend Of Duets For The 2024 Presidential Election Candidates, PAN: Relaxed, Don't Want To Join In

JAKARTA - The National Mandate Party (PAN) does not want to join in on the pairing of presidential and vice presidential candidates as has been happening recently.

Although the 2024 Presidential Election (Pilpres) is still three years away, political parties have begun to maneuver to match their candidates to be carried in the upcoming presidential election.

Deputy Chairperson of the Central Executive Board (DPP) Viva Yoga Mauladi said that his party was still relaxed about discussing the 2024 presidential election. Instead, he considered that the effort to pair the presidential and vice presidential candidates was only part of a public check or testing the water.

"PAN is relaxed and doesn't want to get involved," said Viva, Tuesday, June 8.

The deputy chairman of Commission IV of the House of Representatives said that the duet of the candidate pairs was like an 'approach when dating'. If the matchmaking effort doesn't work, then it's just crowded but it doesn't happen.

“Efforts to pair candidates for president are only part of the political approach. It's just cheesy seduction but not yet dating, let alone to the aisle. That's why PAN doesn't want to," he explained.

Therefore, said Viva, PAN only wants to focus on strengthening the party's internal consolidation towards the upcoming general election by targeting building the party structure to the village or sub-district level.

"We are preparing an election winning program and preparing legislative candidates in all regions. The target is to get seats in every electoral district (electoral district),” he said.

Even if you want to nominate from within the party, PAN recommends the three strongest candidates. Namely Soetrisno Bachir, Hatta Radjasa, and Zulkifli Hasan. Because he said, all three have the capacity and track record to become future leaders.

"But it depends on the aspirations of the people and the general chairman decides at the National Working Meeting in early 2023," said Viva.

As is known, the current trend is that political parties are starting to explore coalitions by pairing candidates for the 2024 presidential election. Among them, Prabowo Subianto-Puan Maharani, Anies Baswedan-Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (AHY), Anies-Khofifah, Muhaimin Iskandar-AHY, Airlangga Hartarto-Ridwan Kamil .

Recently, the Democratic Party (PD) assessed that a coalition with the Golkar Party could be a solution for improving Indonesia's economy in the future. PD encourages Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (AHY) to partner with Airlangga Hartarto in the 2024 presidential election.

"The Democratic Coalition and Golkar in the 2024 presidential election have the opportunity to save the economy in the future," said Deputy for Data and Information Analysis for the DPP Democrat Research and Development Syahrial Nasution via the Twitter account @syahrial_nst, Sunday, June 6.

Syarial assessed that the PD-Golkar coalition, such as during the administration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Jusuf Kalla (JK), is very open to be repeated. Therefore, Syarial encouraged AHY to be paired with Airlangga.