Discourse On The Coalition Of Anies Baswedan-Ganjar Pranowo: Not Just To Stir Prabowo Subianto

Presidential Candidate number three Ganjar Pranowo and Presidential Candidate number one Anies Baswedan in the Third Presidential Candidate Debate which was held at Istora Senayan, Sunday (7/1/2024). (VOI/Bambang E Ros)

JAKARTA The discourse of a coalition between the candidate pair Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar and Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD has been sticking out recently. Is it true that the goal was to stem the victory of the Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka pair?

The potential for the AMIN pair coalition with Ganjar-Mahfud MD has emerged because so far there has been no survey results showing a pair that dominates with votes above 50 percent, even though the Prabowo Subianto-Gilang Rakabuming Raka camp remains superior in a number of polls. This means that it is very likely that the 2024 Presidential Election (Pilpres) will be held in two rounds.

Ahmad Syaikhu, President of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) who carries Anies as a presidential candidate, stated that his party is open to cooperating with all groups. However, he stressed the importance of building good communication among various parties so that the presidential election does not become a detrimental stage of fighting.

The 10th and 12th Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla or who is familiarly called JK also commented on the discourse of the coalition of candidate pair number one and candidate pair number three. According to JK there are no friends and eternal opponents in the world of politics, so the discourse of the coalition in the second round is a good idea.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Steering Committee of the National Campaign Team (TKN) Airlangga Hartanto responded to this issue with optimism. Airlangga said he believed that Prabowo-Gibran could win the presidential election in one round, even though he acknowledged the potential for Anies' coalition with Ganjar.

Executive Director of the Indonesian Public Institute (IPI), Karyono Wibowo, actually saw the discourse of a coalition between candidate pairs one and three sticking out to prevent candidate pairs two from winning the one-round presidential election.

"Why do they have to unite? Because if they fight individually it will smooth out candidate pair number two to win the one-round presidential election," said Karyono when contacted by VOI.

However, Karyono Wibowo sees that there is something much more important than just defeating the Prabowo-Gibran pair. This political observer who graduated from the University of Indonesia said that Anies' potential coalition with Ganjar occurred because he saw injustice in the implementation of the election.

Karyono said the main goal of the coalition was not to defeat certain candidate pairs, but to stem arbitrariness and create open, honest and fair elections.

They considered that there were irregularities, for example the president, the neutrality of the apparatus and ASN, and the use of policies as instruments to win certain candidate pairs supported by the authorities, as well as other problems such as allegations of intimidation. Karyono explained.

"That's the reason why candidate pairs one and three must unite, namely to face a regime that sides with candidate pair two," he added.

Contacted separately, the Executive Director of the Nusantara Institute PolCom SRC (Political Communication Studies and Research Center) Andriadi Achmad has a different view. According to Andriadi, it will be difficult to create a coalition between Anies' camp and Ganjar's camp in the second round against Prabowo's camp.

"It is difficult to imagine the creation of a coalition between PDIP-PKS, which in the history of politics at the national level never happened," said Andriadi.

However, this FISIP lecturer at Al-Azhar University Indonesia said that in any politics it could happen so that it did not rule out the current coalition. Andriadi gave an example of PDIP and Jokowi who finally separated in the middle after they performed solidly in the two editions of the presidential election. In addition, PKS also joined PKB in a change coalition to support Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar in the 2024 presidential election.

Andriadi said that the Anies-Ganjar coalition would only happen if PDIP Chair Megawati Soekarnoputri and Nasdem Chair Surya Paloh reached an agreement. Meanwhile, PKS and PKB will only follow because they do not have the power to make decisions in the coalition.

He gave an example of how when the Change Coalition decided to elect Muhaimin Iskandar as Anies Baswedan's representative who did not involve PKS and Democrats as coalition partners, even though in the end the Democrats chose to resign and join KIM.

"This means that the coalition between Anies' camp and Ganjar's camp will unite in the second round if Megawati and Surya Paloh agree. As we know recently PDIP and Nasdem have broken up partnerships," said Andriadi.