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Government puts foot down in Democrat schism, deals political blow to Moeldoko
The government has rejected the Moeldoko camp's claim to the Democrat chairmanship on an administrative technicality, which doesn’t bode well for the Presidential Chief of Staff’s political standing.
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Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko (right) speaks during the Deli Serdang congress held by a splinter group from the Democratic Party on March 5, 2021 in North Sumatra. Members of the splinter group had objected to last year’s chairmanship election of Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, the eldest son of party founder and former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and a relative political newcomer, and instead selected incumbent Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko, a party outsider, as their preferred chairman. (Antara/Endi Ahmad)
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residential Chief of Staff Moeldoko has been dealt a blow to his standing after the government last week refused to recognize him as the legitimate chairman of the Democratic Party in the party’s ongoing internal dispute.
Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly conveyed the government’s decision to reject Moeldoko’s claim to the Democratic chairmanship at a press conference on March 31 due to his supporting camp’s failure to fulfill the necessary administrative requirements by their deadline. The splinter group, comprising several senior party members who have since been ousted, held a congress last month in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra, to name party outsider Moeldoko as the new Democratic Party chairman.
Yasonna said the ministry referred to the party statutes and rules of association from the Democratic Party’s 2020 national congress as the basis for rejecting the Moeldoko camp's arguments in its decision, which it called "objective" and "transparent".
The 2020 national congress elected Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono as the party chair.
“If the Deli Serdang camp feels that it [the 2020 congress] was not in line with the law on political parties, please take it to court,” said Yasonna, a senior politician in the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
Read also: PDI-P may have leverage in Democratic Party’s internal conflict
Firman Noor, who heads the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Center for Political Studies, said Moeldoko might never escape his reputation as leading the attempted hostile takeover of the party following the government’s decision.
