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President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his campaign team have been accused of being behind the internal conflict ravaging the National Mandate Party.

Abdillah Toha, a senior member of the party, also known as PAN, said there was “intervention from outsiders,” namely Yudhoyono’s government, in the party’s internal affairs.

Abdillah alleged that the same divisive political tactics were also employed to split a fellow Islam-based party, the United Development Party (PPP), chaired by Suryadharma Ali.

“The pattern is the same,” he said. “Both general chairmen of the parties did not support Yudhoyono, but the chairmen of both parties’ advisory boards took his side.”

The conflicts, he said, began after the legislative elections when Yudhoyono was deciding on his running mate while at the same time trying put together a coalition of parties. Yudhoyono’s decision to name technocrat Boediono as his running mate disappointed some coalition members.

Both PAN and PPP performed well below internal expectations in the April polls and have been plagued by divisions since.

The tensions within PAN came to the surface during the party’s national congress held in Yogyakarta after the legislative elections, with all of the party’s provincial heads demanding the party join the coalition being formed by Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party ahead of the presidential election.

Amien Rais, the former party chairman and current chairman of PAN’s advisory board, was said to be the man pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The position adopted by Amien and State Secretary Hatta Rajasa, the current head of Yudhoyono’s campaign team, were in direct conflict with PAN chairman Sutrisno Bachir, who then favored the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) headed by Prabowo Subianto, who has since become the vice presidential running mate of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Amien, however, changed his position after Yudhoyono stuck to his guns and announced that his former coordinating minister for the economy, Boediono, would join the ticket. Bachir himself finally agreed to join the coalition backing Yudhoyono and Boediono.
That did not spell the end of the affair, with at least one provincial PAN board, Central Java, announcing its support for Megawati and Prabowo.

PPP chairman Suryadharma Ali, meanwhile, who previously stated his support for the Megawati-Prabowo pairing, also flip-flopped in favor of Yudhoyono, and now shares the same views of party advisory board chairman Bachtiar Chamsyah. Both Suryadharma and Bachtiar are current members of Yudhoyono’s cabinet.

Again, divisions within the PPP exist, as evidenced by about 1,000 members of the party who turned out in support of Megawati when she officially announced her candidacy.

Abdillah said that PAN’s decision to join Yudhoyono’s coalition during its national meeting was invalid because the decision-making process contravened internal party mechanisms and it was made without first securing a political contract from the Democratic Party.
Anas Urbaningrum, a senior member of the Democratic Party, rejected accusations of intervention, saying that both PAN and PPP were represented in the current cabinet and were already part of the governing coalition.