Eight dissident councillors face dismissal from party

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A man is worth his words, so the saying goes. When eight of 16 city councillors from the Democratic Party failed to abide by the party's written agreement with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) to cast their votes for PKS councillor Ahmad Heryawan for the council speakership, they will have a price to pay: recall and possible dismissal from the party.

The chairman of the Jakarta chapter of the Democratic Party, Husein Abdul Azis, told The Jakarta Post on Monday that a preliminary internal investigation within the chapter showed that the eight councillors cast their votes for other candidates during the speakership election.

"It was against the party's instructions. They will face recall since they have crossed the line," he said, without naming the eight councillors.

"We have suspended all of the party's 16 councillors for a week to give time to the party to further investigate the case," he said.

He added that the party might consider expeling the eight councillors, which he referred as "the deadwood", of the party.

Husein said the party could not tolerate such a wrongdoing because its 16 councillors had signed the agreement to support the PKS at the council.

The Democratic Party, which earned 16 seats at the council, had promised to throw its weight to PKS, which won 18 seats. With 34 votes on paper, the coalition was expected to bring some changes in the council, especially with the PKS campaign to fight corruption, collusion and nepotism.

In reality, Heryawan lost dramatically to councillor Ade Surapriatna of the Golkar Party, who is serving his fifth tenure. Ade garnered 42 votes while Heryawan only got 30 votes.

Ade claimed that he had not received any official notice from the Democratic Party about the suspension.

"Of course, it will affect the day-to-day activities in the Council ... we have to reach a quorum in our hearings," Ade told the Post.

"We will seek clarification from the faction about the issue. If they fail to present it during the council's meetings, we will simply consider them absent."

Husein said the party's chapter has prepared its other members to replace the dismissed councillors.

He also said that the Democratic Party's city councillors would "bear the brunt of the blame" if SBY-JK lost in the second round of the presidential election, referring to front-runners Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Muhammad Jusuf Kalla.

He made his statement when Susilo and Kalla were leading with 70.15 percent to Megawati and Hasyim's 29.85 percent of the total 773,786 votes in the provisional vote counting in city at 7 p.m.

PKS chairman Hidayat Nurwahid had said earlier that his party would not withdraw its support from Susilo in the presidential election runoff despite the incident.

"The incident will not reduce the party's support toward the reform issue brought by Susilo's camp. We want to show that our support was not based on power-sharing but on the same mission and vision for a better future for the country," he said.