The 15 percent of the popular vote garnered by the Golkar Party in the April 9 legislative election quick count appears to have failed to stop clashes between the party’s rival factions.
The conflict appears to have worsened, with the party’s current chairman Aburizal Bakrie and his camp bracing for a step-up in attacks from other party members in the upcoming national meeting.
One of Golkar’s most experienced politicians, Akbar Tandjung, said on Sunday that he would use the party’s next national executive meeting, scheduled for early next month, to file a motion of non-confidence against Aburizal, who he accuses of failing to secure the target of 30 percent of the vote.
“I think the motivation to hold the meeting shortly after the legislative election and prior to the presidential vote is to evaluate our performance in the April 9 poll and address some problems, so that we can improve our performance ahead of the July 9 presidential election,” he said during a press conference at his residence in South Jakarta.
“Why was our legislative vote so low — only about half of our target? Something must have gone wrong. I believe our members in the regions share my concerns,” Akbar said.
Akbar, a former party chairman, also slammed Aburizal for failing to utilize the party’s “political machinery” to garner more votes.
“Under Aburizal’s leadership, party consolidation is not good. We have failed to focus on the party’s interests. Aburizal, when he visited the country’s regions, was more about campaigning for his presidential candidacy, rather than working for the party’s interests, yet he is the party chairman,” Akbar said.
Akbar, who currently serves as chairman of Golkar’s advisory council, is known as the leader of a splinter faction against Aburizal’s camp.
Akbar was Golkar chairman from 1998 to 2004 and is believed to continue to hold support among regional Golkar members.
Amid speculation that Aburizal could soon lose his grip on the party, Akbar said the May meeting would not have the authority to replace Aburizal, based on the party statute.
“The forum in which it is possible to name a new chairman is the national congress, which is scheduled to be held next year,” Akbar said.
But Akbar was quick to add that the May meeting could see Golkar members calling for an early leadership change, given their disappointment over the performance of the party’s central executive board.
Golkar deputy chairman Fadel Muhammad, however, claimed the plan to hold the national executive meeting next month was not final.
“I have just checked with the party secretary-general [Idrus Marham] and he said there was no decision about the meeting yet,” Fadel told The Jakarta Post.
Fadel, however, shared Akbar’s concerns about Golkar’s performance in the legislative election.
“I agree that Aburizal, in his capacity as the leader of the central executive board, is responsible for the result,” he said. “Indeed we failed to reach the target, but at least our electability this year was around 1 percent higher than in 2009.”
Fadel said that Golkar managed to garner more votes from the eastern part of the country, while losing votes from Central Java and its stronghold in Banten, West Java.
Speculation is rife that the intention behind Akbar’s move within Golkar was to present himself for vice presidential positions in a coalition with another political party ahead of the presidential race.
During the conference, Akbar claimed he had been named a running mate of a presidential candidate, either for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) Joko “Jokowi” Widodo or the Gerindra Party’s Prabowo Subianto.
“Today, among all of the potential vice presidential candidates discussed in the media, such as [former vice president] Jusuf Kalla and [former Constitutional Court chief justice] Mahfud MD, I heard it was me who was favored by either Jokowi or Prabowo,” he said.
Over the weekend, meanwhile, Democratic Party executive chairman Syariefuddin Hasan said the party would run an evaluation for its ongoing presidential convention.
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/04/14/golkar-s-stagnant-result-p...
