Akbar shows who's the boss

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.