Prabowo visits NU leader and ailing Gus Dur

Malang, NU Online
During the cooling-off period, the Great Indonesia Movement Party’s (Gerindra) presidential hopeful, Prabowo Subianto, is traveling to Malang in East Java and Bangkok, Thailand, to meet with religious leaders.

In Malang, Prabowo visited the home of  KH Hasyim Muzadi, general chairman of the Central Board of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s biggest Muslim organization.<>

“This is not a campaign, but a silaturahmi [the act of visiting family to keep in touch] to ask for his blessing,” Prabowo said upon his arrival at Hasyim Muzadi’s Al-Hikam boarding school in Ceger Ayam, Malang.

Prabowo was accompanied by his brother, Hashim Djojohadikusumo.

In Batu, Malang, Prabowo also met the noted Christian scholar Petrus Octavianus. Petrus Octavianus received Prabowo and Hashim at his YPPI church compound, together with about 100 congregation members. During the meeting, Octavianus openly endorsed Prabowo.

“I have never given political endorsements to any parties or leaders before. This time, I’ve found something I look for in Prabowo,” Petrus said, as quoted by The Jakarta Post.

Prabowo is scheduled to fly to Bangkok to visit Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, who is currently hospitalized there.

The latest survey by the Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicate (SSS) showed that Prabowo was the second most popular presidential candidate after incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The survey, which polled 2,502 respondents in 136 regencies in April, shows 58 percent of respondents prefer Yudhoyono to be president. At 26.9 percent the runner-up in the survey was Prabowo, Soeharto’s former son-in-law, followed by former army chief Wiranto, with 8.9 percent.

Prabowo is fighting accusations of abducting student activists in the 1990s and has also been criticised for spending millions of dollars recasting his image as a protector of the poor. (dar)