NU leaders reject Matori's PKB
Bambang Nurbianto and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The country's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is acting tough as part of its efforts to get the leaders of its National Awakening Party (PKB) back together again.
Respected leaders of the 40-million-strong NU are working on a plan to issue an edict ordering its members not to support a splinter group led by Matori Abdul Djalil.
The edict will be issued on Thursday in a desperate bid to pressurize Matori to drop his leadership claim, which has split the PKB, the country's fourth largest party.
Matori, the current defense minister and the leader of the splinter PKB faction, has several times failed to show up at NU- sponsored forums aimed at reconciling him with the rival PKB leaders, who are loyal to former president Abdurrahman Wahid, or Gus Dur as he is familiarly known.
Gus Dur, who chairs the PKB board of patrons, had sacked Matori as party chairman for backing the former's ouster from the presidency last July by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).
Gus Dur then appointed his former foreign minister Alwi Shihab to replace Matori.
Matori rejected his dismissal and claimed he remained the legitimate PKB leader. His party faction will even hold a special congress to affirm his leadership between Jan. 14 and Jan. 16.
He has insisted that he will not consider reconciliation with his rivals until after the congress.
Gus Dur's version of the PKB is scheduled to organize a separate three-day congress in Yogyakarta from Jan. 17 to Jan. 19.
The NU began a two-day meeting of its regional leaders from across the country on Wednesday at its headquarters in Kramat Raya, Central Jakarta, in another last-ditch effort to bring about reconciliation.
NU co-chairman Solahuddin Wahid told The Jakarta Post that should Matori spurn the latest offer for reconciliation, the NU would declare its support for Gus Dur's PKB.
"The final decision will be issued in the form of an edict prepared by NU ulemas from throughout Indonesia," said Solahuddin, who is also Gus Dur's younger brother.
"So, we will have a clear answer in case people ask about the NU's stance on the conflict in the PKB," he added.
Solahuddin said it was clear that most of NU's 40 million members across the country were rallying behind Gus Dur and his PKB faction.
"It is a political reality that most NU followers support Gus Dur, and if the NU backs a splinter PKB group it will become alienated from its grassroots," he said.
Solahuddin also urged President Megawati Soekarnoputri and Vice President Hamzah Haz not to attend Matori's PKB congress because such attendance would be seen as a token of support.
"The conflict among PKB leaders is an internal problem," he said.
The rival camps have been trying to win the government's support by inviting Megawati and Hamzah, as well as ministers, to attend their respective leadership congresses.
Meanwhile, Alwi voiced pessimism over the reconciliation efforts, saying Matori had always refused the offer of compromise from NU leaders.
"How can we reconcile if he (Matori) is not ready to do so," Alwi told the Post on Wednesday.
He also denied a plan to invite several leaders from PKB regional chapters for a crucial meeting in Jakarta in an effort to unite the two rival party factions ahead of the Yogyakarta congress.