Conservative parties consider merging for united alliance against Joko Widodo an upstart Jakartan starting Presidential run in Indonesia

Conservative parties consider merging for united Presidential run in Indonesia | Democracy and elections

PRABOWO Subianto has won the campaign, thumpingly; Wednesday’s question is whether Joko Widodo has saved enough of what, three months ago, seemed an irresistible surge to win the actual election.

Prabowo, whom the polls had 25 points in arrears three months ago, has commanded a “ruthlessly organised and extremely scientific campaign”, in the words of the Australian National University’s Ed Aspinall, the likes of which Indonesians have not experienced before.

The former three-star general had been preparing his campaign since immediately after the 2009 election, says political scientist and polling expert Djayadi Hanan, while the Jokowi team was still building theirs at the official campaign opening on June 4.

The Jokowi campaign was a scramble all the way to the finish, officially tonight, badly lacking tactical direction and exacerbated by the Jakarta Governor’s conscientious refusal to grapple with Prabowo’s political character, even by means well short of the now notorious kampanye hitam (black campaigning).

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/