Yudhoyonos Position Determines Next President: Gus Ipul

Surabaya, East Java (Antara) - National Awakening Party (PKB) former Secretary General Saifullah Yusuf, better known and Gus Ipul, has opined that the position of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) would determine who the next president is. "The position of SBY as the General Chairman of Democratic Party, and as President for two terms, 'is the kingmaker' of the national political game," Gus Ipul stated here on Friday. According to him, SBY has a lot of instruments and strong network up to this day, although the quick counts of Wednesday's legislative election results indicated that his political party had crashed from 21 percent in 2009 to only around 10 percent this time. Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (DPIP) was garnering 19 percent of the vote in a 12-party contest, followed by Golkar party on the second place with 14 percent of the vote and Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) party on the third place with around 12 percent. "But because there is no political party that can reach the maximum limit of 25 percent of the vote to nominate a presidential candidate, the Democratic Party still have a big opportunity to become a decision maker in the July presidential election," he asserted. Besides this, Gus Ipul noted that SBY will have an even more important position if Democratic Party does not want to have a coalition engine to bring its own presidential candidate.(*)