First Lady Ani for President? It’s Possible, Analysts Say

SBY PRESIDENCY

Talk of the first lady contesting the next presidential election with a running mate from a rival party is a conscious effort to gauge the public’s reaction, political analysts said.

“The idea is to test public perception of President Yudhoyono’s wife, Ani Yudhoyono, running in the 2014 presidential election,” Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a political analyst from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), said on Wednesday.

Ruhut Sitompul, a spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party, had suggested on Monday that it would be good for Ani to contest the 2014 poll with Aburizal Bakrie, the Golkar Party’s chairman, or Puan Maharani, daughter of Megawati Sukarnoputri and a senior figure in the former president’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), as her running mate.

The State Palace has tried to tone down the rumor mills, saying any talk of Ani succeeding her husband as president was simply “discourse, an aspiration or privately conveyed opinion.”

“It certainly didn’t come from Ani or anyone else in the president’s family,” Julian Aldrin Pasha, a presidential spokesman, said on Tuesday.

Ruhut suggested that running with a vice presidential candidate from the opposition PDI-P would be just as beneficial for Ani as sharing a ticket with a candidate from Golkar, which is a major member of the Democratic Party’s ruling coalition.

According to Burhanuddin, the Ani-Puan scenario would be less likely because the PDI-P had repeatedly stated its intention to remain in opposition.

“Plus, no one would vote for a female president and vice president combination. The parties wouldn’t risk such unattractive ticket,” he said.

Some television surveys have also floated the idea of a ticket with Hatta Rajasa, from the National Mandate Party (PAN), although that has so far only registered single-digit interest from the public.

Yunarto Wijaya, an analyst from Charta Politika, said the Democrats were trying to “test the water” for Ani’s potential as a presidential candidate.

With the president prevented by the Constitution from seeking a third term, the Democrats may face a serious hole with no one to step into his shoes in time for the next election.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com

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