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A day after dramatically winning the tax office corruption inquiry vote at the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party stressed that the government coalition would undergo a serious evaluation.

The proposal was rejected by a vote of 266-264 on Tuesday night.

The Democrats’ message now seems to be that the Golkar Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) — two notoriously defiant members of the coalition who pushed for the inquiry proposal — are in danger of losing their cabinet seats.

However, analysts and political insiders say Golkar is not in any real danger. Even Golkar officials seem to be confident the Democrats won’t go that far.

“There’s a limit to our tolerance,” said Saan Mustopha, deputy secretary general of the Democrats, referring to the fact that Golkar and the PKS have challenged his party a number of times, most famously over the Bank Century bailout scandal.

After the dust of the Century scandal settled last year, the ruling coalition formed a joint secretariat with Golkar chairman Aburizal Bakrie at the helm supposedly to maintain the peace within the six-party group. But that apparently has not happened.

“Our choice of words is: we let go. And no, we are not afraid of anyone,” Saan said.

But Golkar members seem to be confident the Democrats can’t afford to let them go.

Priyo Budi Santoso, the chairman of Golkar’s executive board, said they would wait for the result of the evaluation, but even in the worst-case scenario, he doubted they would be expelled just because of the tax mafia inquiry. “We are a big party,” he said.

Yunarto Wijaya, a political analyst with Charta Politika, said that Golkar’s size — 106 lawmakers in the House — would make it too much of a loss.

And ideologically, he said, Golkar is the only non-sectarian coalition member. “Golkar’s ejection would make the coalition too ‘Islamic,’” he said.

A source close to the developments similarly said there would not be a rupture.

The source said that Golkar and Yudhoyono had to consider the continuing influence of each other, and added that the president needed Golkar’s network and political clout.

Despite all the public statements by Golkar and Democratic Party politicians, the fact remains that the close ties between Aburizal and Yudhoyono makes a divorce at this point impossible, analyst Yunarto said.

Golkar’s Priyo also emphasized that the relationship between Aburizal and the president, as well as his own with Democrat chairman Anas Urbaningrum, remained very good.

But a cabinet shake-up has not been ruled out, and even if Golkar seems safe, the PKS is a different story altogether.

Yunarto said Golkar was in a better bargaining position than the smaller PKS, whose ministers were in real danger of losing their seats in the event of a cabinet reshuffle.

The political source also said PKS may turn out to be the loser.

The Democrats do not want a fight with Golkar at this point, the source said, “but the PKS is expendable and this would allow the Democrats to make friends with the PDI-P [the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle] in a cabinet role.”

PDI-P officials have repeatedly said lines of communication with the Democrats about possible cabinet seats were open.

But the chairman of the PKS consultative body, Hilmi Aminuddin, said he recently spoke with the president and he didn’t get any signal that the party was in danger. “Our coalition is with the president, not with the Democrats,” he said.

The source added that it was important to understand in all of this that the tax mafia inquiry proposal was never about the tax mafia. “The vote just has to be seen in the context of political maneuvering for 2014 [elections].”