G

olkar Party chairman and presidential candidate Aburizal Bakrie said on Friday that a slew of a graft
allegations leveled against the party'€™s top brass were engineered to undermine the party.

'€œGolkar and the PDI-P [Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle] are now on the rise. Everything that is considered too high is now being cut down. The PDI-P and Golkar must be targeted to be cut down,'€ Aburizal told The Jakarta Post in an exclusive interview on Friday.

Two high-ranking Golkar executives, secretary-general Idrus Marham and chief treasurer Setya Novanto, have been dragged into the high-profile graft case implicating former Constitutional Court chief justice Akil Mochtar.

The fresh allegations against Setya and Idrus came in the wake of the Corruption Eradication Commission'€™s (KPK) move to detain suspended Banten governor and Golkar executive Ratu Atut Chosiyah on corruption charges.

Atut is accused of abusing her power as Banten governor to benefit her family members, many of whom
controlled strategic political posts in the province.

Aburizal also said that the party would not seek clarification from Idrus and Setya. '€œWe don'€™t believe the allegations,'€ he said.

Both Idrus and Setya have been quizzed by the KPK and denied they had colluded with Akil.

Previously, some media outlets reported on a transcribed Blackberry Messenger conversation '€” believed to have been made around October last year '€” that detailed the roles of the two senior politicians in the illicit arrangements of the court hearing taking place at the time on the East Java gubernatorial election disputes.

The election saw the Soekarwo-Saifullah Yusuf ticket win the poll but the decision was challenged in court by losing candidates.

Tempo.co quoted a conversation between Akil, who is also a former Golkar politician, and Golkar lawmaker Zainuddin Amali, which suggested that Akil had been upset about the amount of '€œbribes'€ sent by Idrus.

'€œI'€™m intending to rule a cancellation of the East Java election. It'€™s a headache. Tell them to prepare 10 billion [rupiah] if they want to be safe,'€ Akil told Zainuddin, according to the transcription.

'€œYour secretary-general [Idrus] was just playing around with me. I heard [Setya] Novanto and Nirwan [Bakrie] were willing to pay. But the secretary-general suggested that I had only deserved [a] small [amount of money]. Did he think that I was merely a legislator?'€ the disgraced former justice went on.

Zainuddin replied, '€œNoted. I will coordinate with the East Java team.'€

But Aburizal brushed off the allegations, saying that they could have been targeted because of Golkar'€™s increasing likelihood of being elected.

'€œGolkar is now being searched for its wrongdoings because of our high electability,'€ he said.

Many pollsters listed PDI-P and Golkar respectively as the top two preferred political parties ahead of the April 9 legislative election, with around 15 to 20 percent of respondents saying they would vote for either party.

Idrus, after facing KPK questioning last month, told reporters that he had never received money in connection to the alleged bribery.

Zainuddin himself has also been implicated in the alleged extortion of the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas).

When facing KPK questioning two weeks ago, Zainuddin denied the allegations.