Jokowi Optimistic PDIP To Have Landslide Victory

Jakarta, April 9 (Antara) - Presidential candidate of PDIP Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has expressed his optimism that his party will have a landslide victory in the ongoing parliamentary elections. "I am very confident that my party will have a landslide victory. My party will receive the majority votes," Jokowi declared after casting his vote at Menteng, Central Jakarta, on Wednesday. Jokowi, the current Jakarta Governor, however, refused to give his prediction on the total vote percentage that the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) could win. "I don`t want to talk about the percentage. Be patient, wait until the afternoon, we still don`t know," he stated. He also believed that the ballot papers will be well secured as PDIP has deployed a number of volunteers to witness the ballot counting. The party has also deployed information technology teams to report the results of the counting from all over the country to Jakarta. Jokowi urged all eligible voters to exercise their rights to cast their votes in the elections. "All inhabitants of Jakarta, citizens of Indonesia must vote; don`t waste your voting rights," he commented. A party or a coalition of parties can only field a presidential candidate if they garner 20 percent of the seats in the lower house or 25 percent of the national vote. The parliamentary elections have participation from 12 national political parties and three local parties of Aceh Province. The number of participating parties dropped from 44 political parties in the elections in 2009. In the parliamentary election 2009, the Democratic Party (PD) won 20.85 percent of the total votes, Golkar Party 14.45 percent, PDIP 14.03 percent, the Justice and Prosperous Party (PKS) 7.88 percent and the National Mandate Party (PAN) 6.01 percent.