Support Gerindra Cadres In South Tangerang Regional Election, NasDem: When Elected, We Don't Be Left Behind

NasDem recommends the candidate pair for mayor and deputy mayor of South Tangerang, Muhammad-Saraswati (Photo: Special)

JAKARTA - The NasDem Party decided to support the Muhammad-Rahayu Saraswati Djojohadikusumo pair instead of supporting its cadre, Benyamin Davnie, in the 2020 South Tangerang Regional Election.

Deputy Chairman of the NasDem Party, Ahmad M Ali, said that the decision to support cadres from other parties was taken with various technical considerations. One of them is the results of the party's internal survey.

"We have studied these very technical considerations, we also conducted a survey, we took pictures of the wishes of the people in Tangsel. On that basis we made a choice for this pair (Muhammad-Saraswati, ed)," said Ali when giving a speech. a letter of recommendation for the couple at the Parliament Building, Senayan, Central Jakarta, Wednesday, July 29.

He hopes that after Muhammad-Sarawasti is elected as regional head in South Tangerang, NasDem will not be abandoned by the two of them. Moreover, Muhammad and Saraswati were not cadres from the party made by Surya Paloh. NasDem hopes that in Tangsel they can get two seats in the DPRD.

"The hope is to Saras with his partner we will leave it for later when elected don't leave us," he said.

Even though he asked not to be left behind, Ali reminded that support should not be interpreted as if NasDem would ask for reciprocity. "We have never exchanged things like that. Support is not always bargained for sale, no. We don't do that," he said.

"This is solely our support for the candidate pairs based on the survey and the will of the people there," he added.

Moreover, Ali said the coalition between NasDem and Gerindra was not the first time this had occurred in the Pilkada. According to him, they have done cooperation in regional head elections in approximately 30 regions.

"What unites NasDem and Gerindra is their ideology. We both have the same ideology," he said.

It is known, Muhammad and Saraswati are not NasDem cadres. Muhammad served as Regional Secretary (Sekda) of South Tangerang to run as a candidate for mayor of the PDI Perjuangan. Meanwhile, Saraswati is a cadre of the Gerindra Party and the nephew of Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto.