The Golkar Party, the second-largest member of the ruling coalition, pledged Sunday that it would continue supporting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration despite being critical of government policies.
Golkar chairman Aburizal Bakrie played down comments last week by party cadres who said Golkar felt stifled by the government because its ideas were often disregarded by other less experienced coalition members, calling the comments “internal dynamics”.
“It would be premature and hasty to leave the coalition now,“ Aburizal said during his address at the opening ceremony of the party’s leadership meeting.
“We will continue to closely monitor the dynamics in the coalition and we will decide [whether to leave the coalition] at the right time,” he said before 500 party functionaries from the central and regional board of executives as well as Cabinet ministers.
Last week, Golkar officials expressed disappointment with the coalition, which they said ignored Golkar’s ideas on improving the government’s poor performance. They said they wanted the President to reshuffle his Cabinet.
Certain factions in the party have expressed disappointment with Yudhoyono, who offered only three posts in his Cabinet to Golkar, up from two in his previous Cabinet.
Golkar’s current leadership meeting is focused on rural development to reflect Golkar’s stated commitment to defending ordinary people. Aburizal emphasized that Golkar would oppose any government policy that was not in the interest of the common people.
“Golkar will oppose the government’s plan to hike the power rates by 17 percent in 2011 and will review unpopular government policies. Golkar will also fight for concrete programs to address unemployment and poverty,” he said.
One issue that Golkar said it would delve into was Indonesia’s economic growth. Despite beating estimates, Golkar says, the 6.4 percent growth had not contributed significantly to poverty eradication efforts or reducing unemployment.
Political analysts recommended that Golkar quit the coalition and instead focus on its new political agenda, improving public welfare.
Commenting on a possible run for the presidency in 2014, Aburizal said the party was not obliged to nominate him. Instead, he said he would pave the way for other, better candidates.
“We will nominate the best person to lead the country.”
In a seminar on nationalism Saturday organized by Golkar, Catholic priest Frans Magnis-Suseno, a professor at the Driyarkara Institute of Philosophy, asked the party to take a leading role in the war against widespread, institutionalized corruption.
“The public is skeptical of the House of Representatives, which has seen many of its members imprisoned for graft and many others charged in court,” he said.
Frans Magnis said corruption, along with increasingly consumption-driven lifestyles, intolerance and social injustice, threatened the nation’s integrity.
Azyumardi Azra, the director of the postgraduate program at Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic University in Ciputat, Banten, said at the seminar that Indonesia should not succumb to demands by hardliners to become an Islamic state, and should maintain the Pancasila as the state ideology, which, he said, was the best alternative for the pluralistic country.
