National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairman Muhaimin Iskandar announced that he has proposed himself for the Vice President candidacy to accompany President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).
“I propose myself as Jokowi’s vice presidential candidate, who is the only presidential candidate who has emerged,” said Muhaimin Iskandar during an informal discussion with leaders of the media industry on Wednesday, March 14.
Muhaimin Iskandar started the discussion by officially submitting himself as a candidate for vice presidency to accompany Jokowi.
“Today, I announce for the first time that I officially submit myself as a candidate for the vice presidency. I have not announced it to date, even though billboards showing me as vice president have emerged everywhere,” he claimed.
He admits that he is optimistic that Jokowi would pick him to accompany the president in the upcoming election, which he argues is because PKB managed to collect 9.04 percent of the votes or 11.2 million people in the 2014 legislative election.
According to Muhaimin Iskandar, Jokowi is faced with only two options. The first is to attract votes from the Muslim community by picking him as the vice president or rather go with a vice president with an economist background and only depend on Jokowi’s electability.
Muhaimin Iskandar also reminded that the Islamic enthusiasm in the upcoming 2019 election must be considered by Jokowi, especially following Islamic rallies such as the one known as ‘212 rally movement’ that has spread to wider areas in Indonesia.
