Indonesian ruling party to hold congress following revelation of corruption among senior officials

English.news.cn, by Abu Hanifah, 2011-07-21

JAKARTA, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian ruling political party, the Democrat Party, is scheduled to hold a two-day national congress Saturday following a high-profile corruption allegation that implicating senior officials at the party as confessed by the party's sacked treasurer to the media recently.

Allegation on the implication of Anas and several senior officials at the party in a high-profile corruption case rife in national media following the confession of former party's treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin about it was televised nationwide recently.

Nazaruddin, who is still at large after being declared a suspect in the corruption case that was said masterminded by Anas, said Anas bought the votes from the party's cadres that made him seized the chairmanship in the party's congress held November last year.

Nazaruddin also said that the money used to buy the votes came from bribes provided by contractors who were just awarded contracts to build national sport facilities in Bogor, West Java and dormitory building projects for the athletes contending in the upcoming regional sport event of SEA Games scheduled in Jakarta and Palembang.

In the testimony aired by local TV station MetroTV in the last two days, Nazaruddin said from his hideout that part of the money provided to buy the votes was retrieved from the state budget funds.

Nazaruddin has been declared a suspect by the country's anti-corruption commission for fixing all the project contracts to those contractors. He was suspected of receiving 13 percent of commission fee from total SEA Games athletes dormitory project that worth 200 billion rupiah (about 23 million U.S. dollars)

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Democrat party's patron figure, has summoned Anas and several party's senior officials regarding Nazaruddin confession on Wednesday.

But none of them was willing to disclose the content of the meeting with the president who secured two maximum presidency periods with landslide votes in 2004 and 2009 elections.

Discourse on possible chairmanship replacement in the upcoming congress rife in national media as an effort to save the party's image before running in 2014 elections.

The party would no longer nominate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as he had his maximum two presidency terms. The party has yet to find the correct figure to be nominated as its presidential candidate in the elections.

The Democrat party was initially established to usher Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired army general, to seize presidency.

The party gained massive votes in the last two elections, dominating the seats in the parliament that assuring adequate backup to the president's policies in running the country.

A political expert, Syamsuddin Haris, said earlier that the current high-profile corruption scandal make the party risk losing significant votes in 2014 election.

He said that the corruption scandal has eroded the public's trust on President Yudhoyono's party that strongly voiced anti- corruption drive during the election campaign.

Editor: Xiong Tong