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Pekanbaru, Riau. The mud slinging between candidates vying for the leadership of the Golkar Party was thrown into full gear on Wednesday at the party’s national congress.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla officially completed his tenure as party chairman on Tuesday night. The position is being contested by Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, media mogul Surya Paloh, Yuddy Chrisnandi and Hutomo Mandala Putra, better known as Tommy Suharto.

A plenary of the congress opened on Wednesday evening to elect a new chairman, but it immediately descended into a succession of rowdy protests and interruptions, forcing repeated delays. As midnight approached, hopes diminished that the vote for a new chairman would be able to start before the day ended.

In the first of the day’s scandals, Wednesday morning’s headline on Metro Riau, a local newspaper, declared: “Golkar boss candidate allegedly involved in corruption case.”

The story alleged that Paloh was linked to a graft case connected with Exxon’s Cepu project, and that he had ignored summons from the Bojonegoro prosecutor on Friday.

But Paloh’s campaign team said they would sue the paper, asserting that the story amounted to character assassination ahead of the leadership vote. They have laid the blame on Bakrie.

“That’s junk news. It’s a smear campaign and very embarrassing for candidates like Bakrie to take such an action,” Sugeng Suparwoto of the Paloh campaign said.

Sugeng, who is also a director of PT Surya Energi Raya, said he had been assured that neither Paloh nor his company had been summoned by the prosecutor.

Meanwhile, Yuddy accused other contenders of buying votes, with district branch chairmen being offered Rp 500 million ($53,000) to Rp 1 billion to direct votes to a “certain candidate.”

“This is from a source who can be trusted,” Yuddy said, adding that some branch chairmen who supported him were offered money to switch their votes.

Paloh’s campaign spokesman, Victor Laiskodat, said his team “could not afford to buy votes.” “What we offer is the idealism to help this party recover from its critical condition,” he said.

Bakrie who has promised a Rp 1 trillion ($106 million) trust fund for the party if he were elected, said the offer had nothing to do with the money politics. “The voting process will be conducted freely and confidentially, and therefore such money would not affect the voters’ preference.”

He also branded it “acceptable” for candidates to offer money to district branch chairmen because they “need funds to develop their regions.”

Tommy denied he was buying votes by offering sums to district chairmen supporting his bid saying the money was for development projects in their territories.

“I don’t buy votes. It’s contrary to my conscience because my intention is to restore Golkar. If I did such a thing, my intention will not be blessed by God.”

Money politics, he said, was not a violation of law. “It’s just dealing with morality.”

Yuddy said financial promises should be only be made after they candidates were elected.

He said Golkar’s behavior would reflect the nation because almost half of the 538 congress members were sitting in the cabinet, the House of Representatives, the Regional Legislative Council and local governments.

Should any candidate get at least half of the total votes in the first round, he will automatically become the new chairman. If the votes are split, only candidates with at least 30 percent can proceed to the next round.