Gusti Bendoro Pangeran Haryo Prabukusumo — the brother of Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X — has left the Democratic Party to protest its stance on the province’s special political status.
Prabukusumo also resigned as the party’s provincial executive board chairman on Wednesday evening after meeting with local party leaders, handing in his party membership card and a resignation letter on Thursday.
“If I stay and say something bad about the party I may have a problem or get fired. So I had better quit now,” Prabukusumo said.
He said he resigned to fulfil a mandate from his late father Hamengkubuwono IX, the late Paku Alam VIII and former president Sukarno to support the appointment, and not the election, of the province’s leaders.
Proposals for the direct election of Yogyakarta’s governor and the installation of Hamengkubuwono as honorary governor would damage the work of his father, the Paku Alam and Sukarno, Prabukusumo said.
He quoted from the Sept. 5 1945 declaration of Hamengkubuwono IX and Paku Alam VIII, which stating Yogyakarta and the Pakualaman kingdoms would become part the Indonesian Republic after the nation gained independence in August 1945.
Prabukusumo said that Hamengkubuwono IX and Paku Alam VIII were then proclaimed the heads of the provincial administration.
“Sultan Hamengkubuwono and Adipati Paku Alam remained fully in control of their respective territories in exchanging for joining Indonesia,” Prabukusumo said.
He added his resignation was his own decision and was made without consulting his brother Hamengkubuwono.
“This is purely a personal stance as a son of a sultan. I don’t want to become an insurgent son.”
Prabukusumo said he did not want to provoke other members of the Democratic Party to resign even though several provincial executives followed his move.
On honorary governors, Prabukusumo said Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi needed to better understand the meaning of Yogyakarta’s special status according to the Sept. 5 1945 announcement.
The concept was a promise to be honored, he said, adding that he had no idea how Hamengkubuwono would be honored.
Prabukusumo said such a concept would only limit the closeness of a king to his people.
He said he had no problems with the central government’s reduction of the Yogyakarta Sultan’s authority.
“But the authority has been continuously reduced,” he added.
He said he would not return to the Democratic Party even if it changed its stance on Yogyakarta’s special status.
As provincial executive board chairman he was not consulted by the party’s central executive board to discuss the bill, he said.
“I’m released. I’m no longer burdened by the party’s stance. I can now be more focused on the struggle to defend my father’s dignity,” Prabukusumo said.
The Democratic Party won 10 out of 55 seats in the Yogyakarta provincial legislative council in elections last year, placing it just behind the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 11 seats.
Meanwhile, an association of Bantul village heads demanded that Democratic Party legislator Roy Suryo resign for not defending Yogyakarta’s special status.
“Legislators whose electoral districts are in Yogyakarta better resign from their posts if they do nothing to fight for the special status, especially for the appointment and not election of the governor,” association chairman Sulistyo Admojo said on Thursday.
