Akbar shows who's the boss

Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Surviving dirty politics is one thing. Surviving party politics is quite another.

Golkar Chairman Akbar Tandjung showed who the boss was on Thursday evening when he, despite having been declared a suspect in a multi-billion financial scandal involving the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), suspended 19 party leaders for playing little or no active role in what was the political bandwagon of former president Soeharto for more than three decades.

Deputy secretary-general Muchyar Yara, one of those suspended, said that claims made by Akbar that they played little or no active role in the party were "total lies".

A confidante of People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Deputy Speaker Ginandjar Kartasasmita, Muchyar said he believed he had been suspended because he had demanded Akbar's removal as party chief many times.

Following worsening tension between Ginandjar and Akbar, Muchyar's demands to remove Akbar from the party chief's seat grew louder when the Attorney General's Office declared Akbar, who is also the House of Representatives speaker, a suspect in a graft scandal.

"As long as Akbar is still the party chairman, the scandal will be linked to Golkar. It is not right for a graft suspect to be Golkar party chief," Muchyar, who is also a noted lawyer, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Even as he vowed to put a stop to Akbar's efforts to get him dismissed from the party, he refused to comment on his own reported personal ambition to fill the post of Golkar party chief with Ginandjar's blessing, if ever it is vacated by Akbar over the scandal.

Tensions between Golkar patron Ginandjar and Akbar sprouted following Ginandjar's disappointment with Akbar for doing nothing when Marzuki Darusman, then attorney general in former president Abdurrahman Wahid's cabinet, dragged Ginandjar to court over a graft scandal.

Akbar also reportedly refused Ginandjar's request to dismiss Golkar member Marzuki Darusman from the party's executive board.

Ginandjar responded by allegedly forcing some of the party's main chapters, including West Java, to push for Akbar's removal as party chief and lobby executives of other party factions to back his move.

A number of Golkar camps, which had initially been irreconcilable, finally seemed to be working toward a goal: To get Akbar to be perceived as the sole person responsible for the Bulog graft scandal, and therefore remove this criminal responsibility from the shoulders of the party.

This was reportedly aimed more at convincing Golkar party members to topple Akbar from the chairman's seat, than for the good of the party.

Another staunch critic and senior party member, Achmad Arnold Baramuli, is reportedly among those joining hands with Ginandjar over the single mission of dethroning Akbar.

Golkar deputy chairman Agung Laksono earlier told reporters at the party's leadership congress here that the possibility of suspending or dismissing Baramuli "remained wide open".

Baramuli, who did not turn up for the three-day meeting in Jakarta that opened on Wednesday, is a senior member who now serves as one of the party's patrons.

The bitter relationship between Baramuli and Akbar surfaced after Golkar failed to get B.J. Habibie elected president during the 1999 elections. Baramuli gained momentum to oust Akbar after the latter was implicated in the graft scandal.

He leads the Iramasuka camp comprising the Irian Jaya, Maluku, Sulawesi and Kalimantan chapters of Golkar. Within the Iramasuka camp there are party officials who still support Akbar, including Minister of People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla.

Marzuki Darusman reportedly has his own staunch followers of young "reformers".

The camps' executives indicate that the camps are competing to get their members to fill the post of Golkar party chief, if ever vacated by Akbar over the Bulog scandal.

Ginandjar's camp is reportedly throwing its weight behind Muchyar, the Iramasuka camp has strong support from eastern Indonesia's Golkar branches, while Marzuki himself is reportedly also vying for this much sought-after post.

Despite the graft scandal, Akbar still rules as Golkar's ultimate survivor and the party's boss. It is, however, still not known who will eventually end up filling Akbar's shoes in the long run.