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new chapter in the long-running feud between Democratic Party chairman Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri emerged on Thursday, in the wake of one of the former’s trademark confessional press conferences on Wednesday night.

During the press conference, Yudhoyono implied that Megawati was the reason the Democratic Party would not support President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s reelection bid and was close to backing Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto instead.

Yudhoyono said he and Jokowi had discussed the possibility of the Democrats joining the pro-government coalition for over a year and that he had a good relationship with the President.

However, “obstacles” prevented the Democratic Party from joining forces with Jokowi.

He said that, “[...] in reality, the relationship between Bu Megawati and I has not fully recovered. There is still distance between us.”

Relations between Yudhoyono and the PDI-P chairwoman have been strained since he ran against then-president Megawati in the 2004 presidential election. At the time, he was her coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs.

“It seems that there are hurdles for the Democrats to join [Jokowi’s] coalition,” Yudhoyno said in a press conference on Wednesday night. “Even though I truly feel Jokowi’s sincerity in inviting us to represent the Democratic Party, I also realize, and I do not need to name the source, that the path is not open for the Democrats to join his coalition.”

Yudhoyono’s statement was triggered by a snippy back-and-forth between PDI-P and Democratic Party executives.

PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto got the ball rolling on Thursday by publicly mocking Yudhoyono’s “seasonal complaint” and claimed that the Democratic Party had not joined the Jokowi coalition because its chairman “only focused on AHY’s future”, referring to Yudhoyono’s son Agus Harimurti.

Agus mounted a failed run in last year’s Jakarta gubernatorial race and has been widely touted as Yudhoyono’s political successor and potential vice presidential candidate for Prabowo.

The PDI-P and other progovernment parties previously implied that the Democrats had not joined the coalition because they insisted on Agus being Jokowi’s running mate.

“All of Pak SBY’s political moves are for the sake of his son, while Ibu Megawati’s [concerns] are far wider than that,” Hasto said.

Democratic Party secretary-general Rachland Nashidik hit back with a statement of his own, calling Hasto the secretary-general of a “feudal and dynastic party”, calling attention to Megawati’s daughter, Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Puan Maharani.

Rachland earlier tweeted that he was willing to “work together with the devil” to remove the incumbent president from office.

“I want to change the president. If that involves working with the devil I will do that. Let alone working with Prabowo,” Rachland said in his tweet on Wednesday.

The dispute continued as PDI-P leaders submitted a report on a 1996 attack on their Jakarta office to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Thursday afternoon. On July 27, 1996, an internal feud within the then-Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) culminated in a bloody attack on the PDI headquarters in Central Jakarta, resulting in dozens of deaths.

The PDI-P alleges that military and police personnel orchestrated the attack, and the party’s report on the incident names Yudhoyono as one the parties involved, in his capacity as the Jakarta Military Command chief of staff at the time.

Democrat executive Ferdinand Hutahaean dismissed Hasto’s statement as a “political comedy”, saying that Megawati knew far more about the incident than SBY.

Political expert Emrus Sihombing of Pelita Harapan University said the two former presidents’ egos were the main reason they had not mended fences, leading to hostility between their parties.

“The PDI-P’s central figure is Megawati and the Democrats’ central figure is SBY, so their members have to always try to defend them,” he said. “That’s the downside of having one person dominate the party.”