Meeting may not end PKB rift

Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post, Semarang

The Central Java chapter of the National Awakening Party (PKB) began a two-day extraordinary meeting in Kudus regency on Sunday, but may fail to reconcile the two factions embroiled in the party's leadership rift.

The rift broke out after the PKB central board led by House of Representatives deputy speaker Muhaimin Iskandar dismissed the Central Java's party chairman Hanif Muslich for refusing to recognize his leadership.

Hanif instead insisted on recognizing the current social welfare minister Alwi Shihab as PKB's legitimate leader, despite the party electing Muhaimin as new chairman at a national congress in April 2005 held in Semarang, Central Java.

The Muhaimin camp appointed Irman Suparno as caretaker of the Central Java PKB branch.

However, Hanif rejected the outcomes of the extraordinary meeting, saying his camp did not send delegates to the forum.

"An extraordinary meeting of Central Java's PKB will be held after a national congress of the party (the faction led by Alwi) in Surabaya in October," he said.

However, participants wanted the meeting used for reconciliation between the warring factions in the party politically controlled by clerics of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the nation's largest Muslim organization.

"I hope the meeting will be a reconcilatory forum because those (from both the Muhaimin and Alwi camps) are all in attendance," cleric Syaiful Bahri, a delegate from Pekalongan, was quoted by Antara as saying.

The ongoing extraordinary meeting in Kudus is expected to appoint a new PKB provincial chairman on its final day on Monday.

Muhammad Yusuf Chodlori, younger brother of Abdurrahman Chudlori who chairs the advisory board of PKB's Alwi faction in Central Java, appeared to be the strongest candidate in the election.

The forum being held at Gryptha Hotel in Kudus is being attended by representatives from 35 regency branches in Central Java.

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid, who is the PKB's chief patron with the Muhaimin faction, could not attend on the advice of his doctors, Muhaimin said in Kudus.