A hostile takeover of a political party’s leadership, with a government official at the helm, certainly takes political chicanery to a whole new level, even by Indonesian standards. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

The incumbent leaders of the Democratic Party, chairman Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono and the chairman of the party’s supreme council, former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, painted themselves as the victim of a hostile takeover and their eff ort to save the party from outside interference as the fight to defend the country’s democracy.

That battle cry could easily ring true and democracy defenders could rally around the Democratic Party — if only the call was not made by the current party chairman and Yudhoyono’s political scion, Agus.

The Democratic Party, despite its name, has never been a standard-bearer for democratic values and norms. And those who rallied around Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko in his bid to take over the party leadership may have a point when they claimed they were fighting against nepotism and Yudhoyono family’s control over the party.

The former first family has long kept a stranglehold on the party. Long before Agus was appointed party chairman last year, the family dispatched Yudhoyono’s in law, Pramono Edhie Wibowo, to run in a party convention in 2014 to select its presidential candidate.

Also, shortly before the convention, in February 2013, Yudhoyono himself took over the party leadership from then-chairman Anas Urbaningrum, who was being investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for graft.

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