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The Democratic Party remains the most popular in the country, according to a new survey, but an analyst warns it still has to deal with the fallout from an ongoing corruption scandal.

The poll, released by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) on Sunday, showed that 18.9 percent of respondents would vote for the Democrats if an election were held this month.

However, LSI director Syaiful Mujani said this was down from the 20.85 percent it won in the general elections in April 2009.

By contrast, he said, the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) had improved in the same period from 14.15 percent to 16.7 percent, and would likely keep growing in popularity as the 2014 elections loomed.

Tommy Legowo, an analyst from the group Concerned Citizens for the Indonesian Legislature (Formappi), said that given their slender lead, the Democrats should be mindful of the impact to their image that the case of their former treasurer, Muhammad Nazaruddin, would have.

The party last Monday dismissed him as treasurer in a move widely seen as an attempt to contain the fallout from the litany of graft cases in which he has been implicated.

But the day after, the lawmaker fired back, leveling accusations at a number of high-ranking Democrat officials.

When it was revealed last Thursday that Nazaruddin was in the fugitive haven of Singapore, Democrat officials were initially dismissive, saying he had been given permission to go and that he had the right to leave as a travel ban had not been imposed when he left.

But on Sunday, party officials also ordered the controversial politician to return from Singapore to face questioning by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Tommy said that while the Democrats could fire Nazaruddin from the party outright, that would not be enough to halt the bad press. He warned that Nazaruddin was likely preparing a slew of allegations against other Democrats if he was left out to dry by the party.

“Nazaruddin might feel he’s being backstabbed, because he did provide financial help to the party and some high-ranking party officials,” Tommy said.

“He might reveal more scandals, which wouldn’t be good for the party.”

On Saturday, cellphone text messages purporting to be from Nazaruddin were sent out to several journalists and politicians, which claimed Nazaruddin had been set up and would wreak vengeance from Singapore, including spilling the beans on scandals involving President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

While Nazaruddin has denied sending the messages, Tommy said it highlighted the difficulty faced by the party and president in containing the controversy.

“SBY must be firm in saying that this time he can’t please all groups,” he said. “Someone must be sacrificed to save the party’s image.”

Senior party members met on Saturday night at Yudhoyono’s residence in Bogor to discuss the threatening text messages.

Andi Nurpati, the party’s public communications head, denounced the allegations made in the messages as “lies” and “character assassination.” One claim was that some party elites were implicated in a same-sex scandal, while another was that 19 million votes were manipulated in the 2009 elections.

But she acknowledged that the party had been taken by surprise by the entire scandal.



Additional reporting by Antara