Jakarta – Indonesia's second largest and former ruling party, Golkar, has dismissed 16 senior members and suspended three others, it was announced.

But chairman Akbar Tanjung – a target of a corruption investigation by the attorney general's office – denied, on Friday, a split in the party, saying the 16 had been sacked because they had failed to attend party meetings for months.

The other three, including Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh, were suspended because they are now holding government posts, Tanjung said, adding they could be reinstated once they no longer filled those posts.

Tanjung denied suggestions of division within the party which was maintained as a monolithic bloc under the 32-year rule of dictator Suharto who eventually resigned in May 1998 amid intense public pressure.

"We have agreed that differences in opinion among us shouldn't be a problem," Tanjung, who is also parliament speaker, was quoted by the official Antara news agency as saying. "There have been diferences in opinion among party excutives, but we learn from those differences," Tanjung said.

Several senior party members have reportedly sought to oust Tanjung after he was named by the attorney general's office last month as a suspect in the apparent embezzlement of 40 billion rupiah (four million dollars) in state funds intended for the poor.

Among those who have called for a special party meeting to sack Tanjung is Arnold Baramuli, a member of Golkar's advisory board. Baramuli is not among those sacked but Golkar deputy chairman Agung Laksono said that possibility was "wide open."

"It is up to the participants whether they will propose a suspension or dismissal of Baramuli during the plenary meeting," Laksono told the Jakarta Post from the sidelines of a party leadership meeting on Thursday.

Tanjung is being investigated over charges that he embezzled the state funds while he was state secretary under then president B.J. Habibie in 1999. He says he channelled the money to a charitable foundation to deliver food to poor villages in Java. The attorney general's office says there is no evidence that food was ever delivered.

Suspicions have been raised that the funds were actually used to bankroll Golkar's campaign in the 1999 general election. The party could in theory be dissolved if found to have violated campaign spending limits.