Secretary General Of Golkar Affirms No Lobbying For Airlangga To Be Paired With Anies In 2024 Presidential Election

Secretary General of the Golkar Party, Lodewijk F Paulus/DOC VOI: Nailin In Saroh

JAKARTA - Secretary General of the Golkar Party, Lodewijk F Paulus, emphasized that there were no offers or lobbies to pair the general chairman, Airlangga Hartarto with the future NasDem presidential candidate Anies Baswedan for the 2024 presidential election.

"Nothing," said Lodewijk after a meeting between NasDem chairman Surya Paloh and Golkar chairman Airlangga Hartarto at the Golkar DPP office, Wednesday, February 1.

The Deputy Speaker of the DPR was also reluctant to reveal the chances of Golkar forming a coalition with the NasDem Party. This is because, said Lodewijk, at this time Golkar will only discuss the presidential and vice presidential candidates from the United Indonesia Coalition (KIB) with PAN and PPP.

"I can't say what the opportunities are. Now we're talking about KIB. At KIB we haven't talked about who the presidential candidate is, who is the cawapres. We're still talking internally, Mr. Airlangga," said Lodewijk.

Regarding the closeness between Golkar and NasDem today, according to Lodewijk, it cannot be concluded that there is an opportunity for the two political parties to join forces. This meeting, he said, was only limited to romance because Surya Paloh is a Golkar alumnus.

"The term Surya Paloh returns to his village, he sees his house first. But we haven't been able to see that opportunity yet, yes, if asked, for example, Golkar, yes we have KIB," he said.

Even if there are political maneuvers after the political party meeting, Lodewijk thinks it's normal. Because, he said, the political process and dynamics ahead of the 2024 elections are still very fluid.

"But the name is politics, yes there are maneuvers, for example, someone is approaching PPP, PAN, that's a process called matching. But we, Golkar, are consistent with the candidate being proposed, namely Airlangga. To what extent is PPP or PAN different? He has a policy related to it," he said.