PDIP Forced To Become The Opposition Of The Prabowo-Gibran Government, For The Sake Of Self-respect?

Poster Paslon 03 Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD. (Doc. Twitter(X)/@@PDI_Perjuangan)

JAKARTA - The presidential and vice presidential candidate pair number 2 Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka will carry out reconciliation if the Indonesian KPU has announced its victory in the 2024 presidential election. Prabowo stated that he would invite the opposing camp to join the government to jointly build Indonesia.

On the one hand, PKS, which is the supporting political party for Paslon 01 Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar, suggested that his party remain outside the government to build a healthy opposition. Then, what about the Paslon 03 camp, especially the PDIP as the bearer of Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD?

A political observer from Al Azhar University Indonesia, Andriadi Achmad explained, actually the term opposition party is not known in the presidential system, more precisely, namely political parties outside the governing coalition. The opposition party, he said, is popular in the parliamentary system, where the government was formed based on the strength of the parliamentary coalition in parliament.

Andriadi said that after the 2004 presidential election when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY)-Jusuf Kalla (JK) won the contest, there was only one political party outside the government, namely PDIP. The rest are like Golkar, PPP, PAN, PKB which previously differed from the coalition to join the government coalition.

Likewise, after the 2009 presidential election which was won by SBY-Boediono, there were only three political parties outside the government, namely PDIP, Gerindra and Hanura. Meanwhile, political parties outside the government after the 2014 presidential election won by Joko Widodo (Jkowi)-JK and the 2019 presidential election were outperformed by Jokowi - Ma'ruf, the Democratic Party and PKS.

In the context of the 2024 presidential election, Andriadi suspects that the political parties that will be outside the government are only PDIP. Meanwhile, others are likely to close to the Prabowo-Gibran government.

"Historically, there is a close relationship between PKS, PKB, NasDem and PPP and Prabowo Subianto. The four political parties will most likely join the government with Gerindra, Golkar, PAN and Democrats," Andriadi said when contacted by VOI, Saturday, February 17.

According to the executive director of the Nusantara Institute PolCom SRC, there needs to be political parties outside the government as an equalizer. On the other hand, the spirit of reconciliation also needs to be maintained to build the Indonesian nation in the future.

However, he said, it is necessary to ensure that all political parties that join the government should not eliminate their critical power.

"If the government issues policies that are not in favor of the people, it needs to be criticized," he said.

So, if all political parties are on the side of the government, who will be the opposition?

Andriadi assessed that PDIP would still insist on being outside the Prabowo-Gibran government. This was done to maintain the party's self-esteem. Moreover, recently the relationship between PDIP General Chair Megawati Soekarnoputri and President Jokowi who supported Paslon 02 was rumored to be not doing well.

"For strength in parliament, even though the winner of the election and the most seats in parliament, PDIP still does not dominate. But I also doubt that PDIP will actually be in the opposition, unless this partnership with Jokowi is broken, it cannot be reconciled. This means that PDIP is forced to become an opposition to maintain self-esteem," said Andriadi.

"The independence of the PDIP as the opposition will later become interesting in Indonesia's political dynamics in the future," he continued.

Previously, Deputy Chairman of the Expert Council of the Prabowo-Gibran National Campaign Team (TKN), Budiman Sudjatmiko, said that Paslon 02 was the choice of reconciliation and national unity.

"For us, the choice of Pak Prabowo-Mas Gibran is the choice of reconciliation and national unity for progress," Budiman said in his statement, Monday, February 11.