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PPP plunges into leadership crisis after chairman’s arrest
Following the arrest of its chairman Muhammad Romahurmuziy on suspicion of graft, the United Development Party (PPP) is scrambling to regroup to ensure that it can achieve the minimum threshold to maintain its seats in the House of Representatives come election day
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span>Following the arrest of its chairman Muhammad Romahurmuziy on suspicion of graft, the United Development Party (PPP) is scrambling to regroup to ensure that it can achieve the minimum threshold to maintain its seats in the House of Representatives come election day.
The PPP central executive board decided to permanently dismiss Romahurmuziy on Saturday, after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named him a suspect in a bribery case centering on the promotion process at the Religious Affairs Ministry.
The board also appointed senior politician Suharso Monoarfa as interim chairman and it will hold a national meeting (Mukernas) on Wednesday and Thursday to confirm him in the position and to decide on the length of his tenure.
PPP deputy chairman Arwani Thomafi said he hoped the meeting would decide to stick with Suharso as acting party chairman to allow the party to focus on the upcoming elections.
“What we need right now is to ensure that the party machinery can function, so we shouldn’t spend too much time debating [who should be chairman],” he said after a discussion held by legislative watchdog Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi) on Tuesday.
“We should focus on April 17, let us move forward and succeed on April 17 and then we can talk about who [should be chairman].”
He acknowledged, however, that other Mukernas participants, who will include regional branch executives, may not share his opinion.
PPP regional branches in East Java and Yogyakarta have floated East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa as a possible alternative, while the Central Java branch has proposed Arwani himself.
“I am a santri [Islamic boarding school student] so I will follow the instructions of the kyai [teachers],” Arwani said, declining to comment on whether he would seek the chairmanship in the future.
PPP secretary-general Arsul Sani said that Wednesday’s Mukernas would only confirm Suharso as acting chairman.
“[The permanent chairman] will only be decided at a Muktamar [national congress],” he said. No Muktamar has yet been scheduled.
Meanwhile, Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, who is also a PPP member, is in the spotlight following a search of his office by the KPK on Monday, in which KPK investigators confiscated cash amounting to Rp 180 million (US$12,666) and $30,000.
Both Lukman and the ministry have declined to comment on the matter, saying only that they would continue to cooperate with the KPK during the investigation.
“I invite all the civil servants at the Religious Affairs Ministry to give their full support to the KPK and all of our law enforcement officers in investigating this case so that [the process] can move faster and we can perform even better,” Lukman said in a statement on Monday.
The KPK has said that it will summon Lukman for questioning in regard to the case, but has not decided when to do so.
The PPP is one of Indonesia’s oldest extant parties, and has held seats in the House since 1977. In 2014, the party garnered 6.53 percent of the national vote, giving it 39 House seats.
Recent polling, conducted before Romahurmuziy’s arrest, put the PPP’s electability at between 3.5 and 4.5 percent, just on the cusp of the 4 percent legislative threshold. Arwani expressed his confidence that the party would be able to meet the threshold.
“While [the arrest] is a disaster for the party, there is a silver lining. Kyai and other figures that were previously indifferent are now spurred into action to ensure that the PPP succeeds,” he said.
Indonesia Public Institute (IPI) senior researcher Karyono Wibowo said he doubted whether Romahurmuziy’s arrest would have a significant effect on the PPP’s electability, because the public had become “immune” to graft scandals given their frequency over the past few years.
He cited the arrest of former Golkar Party chairman Setya Novanto in 2017 as an example — despite the prolonged e-ID card graft case he was involved in, Golkar remains among the top-three parties in terms of electability.
“There might be an impact if there were a lot of [graft] cases piling on top of each other, but a single case will not make much difference,” he said.
