Supporters of Rhoma Irama have said that the self-styled king of dangdut would be better off leaving the National Awakening Party (PKB) after a lack of certainty regarding his potential presidential candidacy from the Islamic-based party.
Rhoma’s official group of supporters, known as Rhoma Irama for Presiden RI (Riforri), said on Saturday that the singer had decided to withdraw his support from the PKB if the party did not nominate him as a presidential candidate.
“The first thing is to withdraw support if the PKB does not fulfill the agreement that was [previously] agreed on to nominate Haji Rhoma Irama for president in the 2014 [election],” Riforri head Shechan Shahab said at the organization’s headquarters in Cawang, East Jakarta.
The threat has come in spite of the PKB having three potential presidential candidates, namely former vice president Jusuf Kalla, former Constitutional Court chief justice Mahfud MD and Rhoma.
The PKB has previously said that the decision about which potential candidate it would nominate would be made after the legislative election on April 9.
However, based on quick count results, the PKB only managed to secure 9 percent of the vote in the legislative election, meaning it did not meet the threshold of 25 percent needed to nominate its own presidential candidate without forming a coalition with other parties.
Therefore, the PKB has offered to form an alliance with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) by putting forward a candidate to fill the vice presidential position, an offer it said was reasonable due to its own good performance in the legislative election.
The candidate that the PKB offered was its party chairman, Muhaimin Iskandar, saying that he was the party’s strongest vice presidential candidate and that there was a general consensus on the choice within the party.
The PKB also reasoned that, if Muhaimin was endorsed as a vice presidential candidate, then he would be able to manage his staff directly in the House of Representatives.
Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) political observer Siti Zuhro said that the absence of Rhoma in the PKB would not make a bit difference now that the legislative election was over. “Rhoma’s role in the past was to make the PKB’s image more down-to-earth, but not in the context of presidential election,” she told The Jakarta Post, adding that the dangdut singer was successful in igniting people’s interest in the PKB.
However, Siti added that it was unethical for the PKB to nominate its chairman instead of one of its other three potential candidates, especially since the party is Islamic-based, and considering Rhoma’s contribution to the party’s electability in the legislative election.
“A party should not just orientate itself on power. It should have idealism. Not to mention that the PKB is an Islamic party, which puts morality at the forefront,” she said. “But that’s the risk of politics. You can be pushed aside.”
While the Riforri claimed that Rhoma had agreed to quit the PKB if there was no clarity on the horizon, the dangdut king declined to explain his own stance on the matter.
Instead, Rhoma said that his fans felt that he was merely being used by the PKB to garner votes, and that they also felt it was unethical for the party not to nominate one of its three potential presidential candidates.
“According to the political contract, the PKB does not have an obligation to nominate Rhoma anymore [because it failed to pass the presidential threshold]. But aside from the political contract, there is a thing called political ethics,” he said in an interview on Saturday. “Therefore, it is only natural for [my supporters] to ask me to quit the PKB.”
Rhoma’s campaign team head Ramdansyah, meanwhile, said that Rhoma was still a member of the PKB as of Saturday.
“When Rhoma met Ical on Thursday, he asked for permission from Cak Imin,” Ramdansyah told the Post, referring to Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie and Muhaimin, respectively. “When he returned from the meeting, he also reported it to Cak Imin. It shows that Rhoma is still loyal to Cak Imin.”
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/04/28/rhoma-should-ditch-pkb-sup...
