April 13, 2026 | 11:07 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto proposed the merger of NasDem Party and Gerindra Party when receiving NasDem Chair Surya Paloh at his residence in Hambalang, Bogor, West Java, in February 2026.
The meeting was reported in Tempo weekly with the title "Di Balik Ide Prabowo-Surya Paloh Menyatukan Gerindra-Nasdem" (Behind Prabowo-Surya Paloh's Idea to Unite Gerindra-Nasdem) published on April 12, 2026. In Tempo's report, their reconciliation took place before Prabowo departed for Washington DC, United States.
This was the first face-to-face meeting between Surya Paloh and Prabowo since the Gerindra Party Chair was inaugurated as president on October 20, 2024. Their last meeting occurred when Prabowo was still the president-elect while visiting NasDem's office in Gondangdia, Central Jakarta, in March 2024.
Surya brought a limited delegation to the meeting in Hambalang. Unlike Prabowo's meetings with the chairpersons of political parties as usual, this meeting was conducted in private.
Surya and Prabowo had a one-on-one conversation for over an hour. Their meeting was confirmed by Gerindra Party's Secretary-General Sufmi Dasco Ahmad. "It is true that they did meet," said Sufmi Dasco Ahmad when asked for comments on Wednesday, April 8, 2026.
Three politicians close to Surya and a member of Gerindra's board revealed that the initial discussion at the meeting was about the parliamentary threshold. This was because in February 2024, the Constitutional Court made a decision ordering the People's Representative Council to recalculate the party vote acquisition threshold as a requirement to enter the legislature.
Surya then proposed raising the parliamentary threshold from 4 percent to 8 percent to Prabowo. However, Prabowo believed that if the entry requirements to the House of Representatives were raised, middle and small-sized parties like NasDem might suffer in legislative elections.
NasDem has only obtained a vote share of 6-9 percent after participating in three general elections since 2014.
According to NasDem's members who heard the story from Surya, Prabowo then put forward the idea of merging Gerindra with NasDem. The combination of the two parties would bring together nearly 35 million national votes, or around 23 percent based on the results of the 2024 general election.
However, three of NasDem's top officials mentioned that Surya did not see the party merger scheme as beneficial to NasDem. These three sources also revealed that Surya was unwilling to let go of the party he had nurtured since its days as a socio-political organization. NasDem chose to continue playing its role in Prabowo's government as a supporter, even though it did not obtain ministerial seats in the Red and White Cabinet.
Three of NasDem's high-ranking officials explained that a party merger scheme was unrealistic because NasDem consistently ranked fifth in two legislative elections. It would be a different story if NasDem struggled to pass the parliamentary threshold.
A different story came from Prabowo's inner circle. A colleague of Prabowo who was in constant communication with NasDem stated that the idea of merging NasDem with Gerindra actually came from Surya. The reason given by Surya to this source was that the merger scheme could simplify the number of parties in Indonesia.
This close associate of Prabowo revealed that the party merger would actually create complications in the field. He gave an example that legislative candidates and electoral districts could clash in areas traditionally dominated by NasDem and Gerindra. This Gerindra official actually predicted that the merger could cause the new party's vote share to plummet, instead of skyrocketing.
This source suggested that Gerindra and NasDem should strive to pass the parliamentary threshold through their own efforts.
State Secretary Minister Prasetyo Hadi has not responded to Tempo's interview request to confirm this information until Saturday, April 11, 2026.
Egi Adyatama, Francisca Christy Rosana, Daniel Ahmad Fajri, Hussein Abri Dongoran, Novali Panji Nugroho, and Septhia Ryanthie in Solo contributed to the writing of this article. In the print edition, this article was published under the title "Ide Merger dari Hambalang" (The Merger Idea from Hambalang).
Read: A Successor to Surya Paloh Will Emerge Naturally
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