JAKARTA: Indonesia’s president-elect Prabowo Subianto has secured a parliamentary majority after the party that backed his rival in the February elections announced it was joining his big-tent coalition.
The NasDem party, which accounts for about 10 percent of parliament, announced late on Thursday that it would support the incoming administration of Prabowo.
The move will give the Prabowo government control over parliament, boosting its stake from 43 percent to 52 percent.
The parliamentary majority is expected to smooth legislative processes, including approval of the 2025 budget, which outgoing President Joko Widodo, widely known as Jokowi, will announce on Friday.
Ex-commander Prabowo, and vice president-elect Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is Jokowi’s eldest son, will be sworn into office on October 20.
Nasdem chief Surya Paloh told reporters on Thursday that his decision to join Prabowo would foster a “calmer and more optimistic” atmosphere and ease the work of the incoming administration.
“We agree to cooperate and collaborate to face challenges in the future,” said Prabowo, after meeting Paloh, “Unity is the key to a nation’s success.” Prabowo, whose coalition includes five political parties, is also in talks with the country’s largest Islamic party, which has a 10 percent parliamentary share. NasDem previously backed Anies Baswedan, a former Jakarta governor and vocal government critic, who was defeated by Prabowo in this year’s presidential election.
The party’s decision to join Prabowo has led it to withdraw support for Anies’s bid for Jakarta governor this November. Jokowi’s youngest son Kaesang has in recent weeks been touted as a possible candidate for the post of governor in Jakarta or Central Java.
Anies, who polls show is the frontrunner in the Jakarta race, has been struggling to find enough parties to support him.
Anies told Reuters this week that “despite the pressure” he was optimistic he would ultimately secure the backing of parties with the required threshold of 20 percent of seats in the regional parliament.
The developments follow the shock resignation at the weekend of Airlangga Hartarto as head of Golkar, Indonesia’s second-largest political party, which is also in Prabowo’s camp.
It was expected that Airlangga, a Jokowi and Prabowo ally, would retain chairmanship of the party until its planned December congress. Instead, that congress will be held next week, when a new party chair will be elected.
After a decade in office analysts say Jokowi is seeking control over Golkar to retain influence after he steps down.
Indonesia’s president-elect Prabowo secures parliamentary majority
https://arab.news/99cny
Indonesia’s president-elect Prabowo secures parliamentary majority
- The NasDem party, which accounts for about 10% of parliament, announced it would support the incoming administration of Prabowo Subianto
- The parliamentary majority is expected to smooth legislative processes, including approval of the 2025 budget
Russia and Ukraine trade attacks as US and European officials prepare for peace talks
Moscow pounded Ukrainian power infrastructure with drone and missile strikes on Saturday and Kyiv launched a deadly strike of its own on southwestern Russia, a day before talks involving senior European and US officials aimed at ending the war were set to resume.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian, US and European officials will hold a series of meetings in Berlin in the coming days, adding that he will personally meet with US President Donald Trump’s envoys.
“Most importantly, I will be meeting with envoys of President Trump, and there will also be meetings with our European partners, with many leaders, concerning the foundation of peace — a political agreement to end the war,” Zelensky said in an address to the nation late Saturday.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner are traveling to Berlin for the talks, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
American officials have tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including which combatant will get control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
“The chance is considerable at this moment, and it matters for our every city, for our every Ukrainian community,” Zelensky said. “We are working to ensure that peace for Ukraine is dignified, and to secure a guarantee — a guarantee, above all — that Russia will not return to Ukraine for a third invasion.”
As diplomats push for peace, the war grinds on.
Russia attacked five Ukrainian regions overnight, targeting the country’s energy and port infrastructure. Zelensky said the attacks involved more than 450 drones and 30 missiles. And with temperatures hovering around freezing, Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said more than a million people were without electricity.
An attack on Odesa caused grain silos to catch fire at the coastal city’s port, Ukrainian deputy prime minister and reconstruction minister Oleksiy Kuleba said. Two people were wounded in attacks on the wider Odesa region, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.
Kyiv and its allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
The drone attack in Russia’s Saratov region damaged a residential building and killed two people, said the regional governor, Roman Busargin, who didn’t offer further details. Busragin said the attack also shattered windows at a kindergarten and clinic. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it shot down 41 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight.
On the front lines, Ukrainian forces said Saturday that the northern part of Pokrovsk was under Ukrainian control, despite Russia’s claims this month that it had taken full control of the critical city. The Associated Press was not able to independently verify the claims.
The latest attacks came after Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov reaffirmed Friday that Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine’s forces have withdrawn from parts of the Donetsk region that they still control.
Ukraine has consistently refused to cede the remaining part of the region to Russia.
Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and national guard troops would stay in parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan — a demand likely to be rejected by Ukraine as US-led negotiations drag on.
Ushakov warned that a search for compromise could take a long time, noting that the US proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.
“We don’t know what changes they are making, but clearly they aren’t for the better,” Ushakov said, adding: “We will strongly insist on our considerations.”
In other developments, about 480 people were evacuated Saturday from a train traveling between the Polish city of Przemysl and Kyiv after police received a call concerning a threat on the train, Karolina Kowalik, a spokesperson for the Przemysl police, told The Associated Press. Nobody was hurt and she didn’t elaborate on the threat.
Polish authorities are on high alert since multiple attempts to disrupt trains on the line linking Warsaw to the Ukrainian border, including the use of explosives in November, with Polish authorities saying they have evidence Russia was behind it.
