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More than half of the people who voted for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) in the recent election want the party’s leaders to be part of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s next cabinet, a survey showed on Thursday.

Indo Barometer conducted a survey in late August involving 1,200 respondents chosen through a multistage random sampling method that carried a margin of error of about 3 percent.

The survey indicated that 60.2 percent of respondents who voted for PDI-P candidates Megawati Sukarnoputri and Prabowo Subianto in the July 8 presidential election now want their party leaders to sit in the next cabinet.

A total of 40.1 percent of respondents also said it would be better if all political parties had representatives in the cabinet.

“This means that the desire to stand as an opposition party is not as strong as recently assumed,” said M. Qodari, Indo Barometer’s director. “Many people want the political elite to work together.”

The survey also found that many voters believed that other parties that did not support Yudhoyono and his running mate, former central bank Governor Boediono, should be included in the cabinet as well.

A total of 57.2 percent of the respondents said they wanted the Golkar Party to join the cabinet, while only 25.3 percent wanted Golkar to stand as an opposition voice.

PDI-P legislator Effendi Simbolon said the party would decide in the next month whether to work with the government or stand as the opposition.

He said the PDI-P’s decision to reconsider its position as an opposition party came after its defeats in this year’s presidential and legislative elections.

“We’re open to criticism or debate, so we can decide whether our move to join the cabinet is right or wrong,” Effendi said.

He added that the Indo Barometer survey should be reviewed independently to determine if PDI-P supporters truly wanted the party to be in the government.

Most PDI-P voters are loyal to party head Megawati, who has said that she wants the party to remain an opposition voice. But her husband, Taufik Kiemas, has approached Yudhoyono and expressed interest in heading the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) and securing cabinet seats for other PDI-P legislators.

Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) legislator Mahfudz Siddiq, meanwhile, said the current political situation was unclear because many parties that did not support Yudhoyono in the election were now warming up to him.