Denpasar – After losing a grueling and sometimes violent Star Reform Party (PBR) leadership battle here over the weekend, a morose faction leader Zaenal Ma'arif now plans to resign from his post as deputy speaker at the House of Representatives.
In a surprise announcement Tuesday, Ma'arif said he believed his defeat in PBR's Bali congress to new leader Bursah Zarnubi made his position in the House leadership untenable.
"I have to admit that I have failed in this election and I don't deserve the House leadership position," Ma'arif told Antara.
Ma'arif said he had failed to lead a respected political party. "Let this (my resignation) educate the public about politics," he said. The senior politician, however, said he would stay a member of the House Commission X for education and labor issues.
Ma'arif lost to Bursah after a protracted race involving clashes between supporters of the two rival candidates, which left one party member in hospital with stab wounds.
Ahmad Daeng, a Ma'arif supporter, was attacked on Sunday by a pro-Bursah party member, Nanang Ali Ahmadijaya, and was admitted to hospital. Denpasar Police arrested Nanang after the incident.
Bursah won the race after garnering 211 votes from delegates at the congress, 72 votes ahead of Ma'arif. Three other candidates contesting the poll, Dja'far Badjeber, Ade Daud Nasution and Ismail Royan, did not make it to the final runoff.
Delegates had hoped the congress would reconcile two conflicting party factions – one led by former PBR leader and noted Muslim preacher Zainuddin M.Z., and a splinter faction led by Ma'arif.
Ma'arif first tried to unseat Zainuddin after Megawati Soekarnoputri's Nationhood Unity Coalition, of which the PBR was a part, was defeated by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the 2004 presidential elections.
However, Zainuddin was later reelected by a PBR congress in April last year, which Ma'arif later derided as being "full of manipulation".
Ma'arif then created a breakaway party congress in Surakarta, Central Java, which elected him as leader of the Muslim party in May.
For over a year, the rift persisted until Vice President Jusuf Kalla intervened. Kalla reportedly briefed the five candidates before their departure to Bali last week.
In his speech to open the congress, Kalla said that the PBR, which has 13 seats in the House, could be disbanded if the two feuding camps failed to settle their differences.
To help reconciliation efforts, Zainuddin did not run for the PBR leadership, throwing the race open.
After the election, Bursah said he would install his competitors in the PBR central board to help unify the party.
"We will accommodate their demands. We don't want to destroy the party's legacy, because all of the candidates have had an historic role in the establishment of the PBR," Bursah told Antara.