REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo and former vice president Jusuf Kalla can be a 'fantastic' pair-up if they run together as a presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate, an observer said.
Political communications expert Lely Arrianie Napitupulu of Mercu Buana University said if Jokowi chose Jusuf Kalla as his running mate in the upcoming presidential elections, the PDIP vote gain is predicted to be considerable.
"It is quite ideal for Jokowi to pair up with Jusuf Kalla. Both of them are fascinating figures with non-greedy political natures, and are non-ambitious and non-temperamental. They share a blend of similarity in Jokowi's gentleness and Kalla's firmness," she said in Jakarta on Saturday.
According to Lely, if NasDem can encourage Kalla, better known as JK, to pair up with Jokowi, PDIP will face no additional problems.
"PDIP and NasDem are already in the same lines of their political platforms. If NasDem can accommodate JK, the two sides can for sure build convenient communications," asserted Lely.
PDIP was the winner of the legislative elections on April 9, garnering some 19 percent of the votes, based on quick vote counts, while Nasdem Party finished eighth with 6.71 percent of votes.
NasDem needs to merge with other parties in order to meet the presidential threshold set at 25 percent of national votes, or 20 percent of the 560 parliamentary seats.
There are 12 national political parties contesting in the legislative elections on Wednesday. Based on unofficial pollsters' quick counts, none of them achieved the presidential threshold.
Two of the 12 electoral contestants could not even garner votes to reach the 3.5 percent parliamentary threshold.
The presidential elections will be held on July 9. The president-elect will be sworn-in in October, 2014.