PKS President Hopes PAN Legawa About The Seat Of Deputy Mayor Of Padang

PKS President Ahmad Syaikhu opens the technical guidance of 3 PKS Sumbagut, in Padang, Monday (21/2/2022). ANTARA/Ikhwan Wahyudi

PADANG - Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu hopes that the National Mandate Party (PAN) is legitimate to hand over the seat of deputy mayor of Padang to PKS cadres, because currently the mayor has been held by PAN cadres.

"We are building a coalition of togetherness with PAN and if we want to maintain it properly and sustainably, then PAN must be willing to give the deputy mayoral seat to PKS," said Syaikhu, in Padang, quoted by Antara, Monday, February 21.

According to him, currently the Mayor of Padang is from PAN, so the deputy mayor should come from PKS.

"I've signed two names to be prepared to become deputy mayor of Padang, it's just that there is something very unfortunate that PAN also wants to nominate its cadres," he said.

Syaikhu saw filling the seat of deputy mayor of Padang as a free market and full of struggles.

"This could disrupt the relationship between the two parties' coalition, which has been going well so far," he said.

Because of this, PKS really hopes that the PAN will be willing to give up the deputy mayor's seat. He admitted that until now there has been no agreement and meeting point with PAN regarding the filling of the deputy mayor seat.

On the other hand, the PKS President said that he had been in touch with the PAN DPP regarding the deputy mayor of Padang, but there had been no agreement.

Syaikhu likens the mayor and deputy mayor to husband and wife and usually a husband will not last long when his wife leaves him.

"So the Mayor of Padang should quickly find a suitable representative," he said.

In line with that, the Chairman of the West Sumatra PKS DPW Mahyeldi reminded that the current leadership of the regional head in Padang is the result of the PKS and PAN coalition.

"PKS always provides support to the Mayor of Padang and I am sure that the Mayor of Padang will not forget this," he said.

The vacancy for the deputy mayor seat of Padang began with the election of the Mayor of Padang Mahyeldi as the Governor of West Sumatra in the 2020 gubernatorial election.

After Mahyeldi was sworn in as Governor of West Sumatra, the Mayor's seat was automatically filled by Deputy Mayor Hendri Septa who came from PAN.

Since the inauguration of Hendri Septa as Mayor of Padang for the remainder of his 2019-2024 term on April 7, 2021, it has been almost a year since the seat of deputy mayor of Padang has been vacant.

Based on the rules, the election of deputy mayor is chosen by the Padang DPRD through voting with the mechanism of the supporting party, namely PAN and PKS proposing two names.

PKS then proposed two names as candidates for deputy mayor, namely the Chairman of the PKS DPD Padang Muharlion and the Secretary of the MUI Padang City Mulyadi Muslim.

Meanwhile, the PAN Central Executive Board officially appointed Ekos Albar as a candidate for deputy mayor of Padang to accompany Padang Mayor Hendri Septa for the remainder of his 2019-2024 term.

The chairman of the West Sumatra PAN DPW Indra Dt Rajo Lelo said that the party had already decided on a name to be proposed to the Padang DPRD later.

"We proposed two names to the center, namely Ekos Albar and Amril Amin, the DPP decided to choose Ekos and we are ready to follow up on this," he said.