Sri Mulyani is overreacting: Golkar deputy

A Golkar Party senior politician thinks Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati is overreacting in her latest speech, delivered during a public lecture held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Jakarta.

Sri said in her speech that her decision to resign from her post and to take a new job as one of the World Bank's managing directors was because the country's political system did not want her anymore.

"I believe that sentiment is Dr. Sri's personal judgment and an expression of her excessive anxiety," Golkar Party deputy chairman Priyo Budi Santoso told reporters at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Priyo, who is also a House deputy speaker, added that Mulyani should have been grateful because she had been given a "soft landing" and was not being made a scapegoat.

Mulyani has been in the hot seat for her alleged involvement in the Bank Century case, which revolves around a bailout that increased tenfold to Rp 6.76 trillion (US$716 million).

In the midst of the escalating political rift, Mulyani was suddenly appointed to a new job at the World Bank starting in June.

Many experts believe that Mulyani has been used as a sacrificial lamb as part of a political deal between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Golkar, whose chairman Aburizal Bakrie has had a rocky relationship with the finance minister in the past.