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Moeldoko camp suffers another defeat in Dems 'takeover', remains unfazed
As the Supreme Court moves to thwart government stalwart Moeldoko in his attempted takeover of the Democratic Party leadership, his supporters are gearing up for one final push.
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Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko (at podium) speaks on March 5, 2021 at an extraordinary congress held by breakaway members of the Democratic Party at a hotel in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra. Senior Democrats opposed to the leadership of Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono formed a splinter group to elect Moeldoko as the party chair. (Antara/Endi Ahmad)
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residential Chief of Staff and former military commander Moeldoko’s attempted “hostile takeover” of the Democratic Party has been dealt another blow as the political battle against the powerful Yudhoyono clan continues.
In the latest developments in the party schism, the Supreme Court moved on Tuesday to reject a petition filed by the Moeldoko camp in April in a bid to thwart Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono’s Democrat chairmanship.
The petition requested a judicial review of the party’s articles of association and bylaws (AD/ART), which justified Agus’ leadership until 2025. The splinter group had hoped that the court would grant the petition and declare the party’s AD/ART null and void, thereby invalidating Agus as the incumbent chairman.
But the court instead ruled out any possibility of a legal decision in the matter, stating that it had no authority as regards political party regulations, as they were an internal matter.
Supreme Court spokesman Andi Samsan Nganro said that the AD/ART applied only to the members of a political party and was not a statutory law. As such, the Moeldoko camp’s petition did not fulfill the Supreme Court’s minimum requirements for a judicial review.
The Agus camp welcomed the court’s decision, which Democrat lawyer Hamdan Zoelva said was “the correct one”. He also noted that the Agus camp believed that the opposing camp was misguided in its pursuit of a judicial review at the country’s top court.
“The Supreme Court’s decision is very precise, with very thorough and in-depth considerations," Hamdan said on Wednesday as quoted by Kompas.com. “If the court were to grant a judicial review of our internal bylaws, it would be detrimental to our legal system as a whole.”
