Anita Rachman & Candra Malik – Chances of reunifying the deeply split National Awakening Party are now even slimmer with the legally recognized faction urging the leader of a splinter group to found a new political party under a different name.
Abdul Kadir Karding, head of the official party's executive board, said stealing other political parties' names and symbols was strictly forbidden by law. He said that if rival faction leader Yenny Wahid wanted to have her own party, she was advised to establish a new one.
"We are not afraid, Yenny's camp doesn't pose a threat to us at all," Abdul said. "But please, have some self-confidence. Announce a new party with a new name."
The party, also known as the PKB, was founded by former President Abdurrahman Wahid, known popularly as Gus Dur, whose name still resonates among Nahdlatul Ulama members, the party's main constituents.
The party split in 2004 when Gus Dur dismissed Muhaimin Iskandar as the PKB's secretary general after an internal spat.
Muhaimin contested his dismissal in court and won. He organized a congress that elected him as chairman and the government recognized his camp as the official bearers of the party name.
Yenny, whose birth name is Zannuba Ariffah Chafsoh Rahman, is Gus Dur's second daughter. She was elected leader in a congress held on Monday by the party faction aligned with her father.
She has talked about setting up a new party to contest the 2014 election. But she also said she would continue to consolidate with PKB branches throughout the archipelago.
Leaders in Muhaimin's camp – including Muhaimin, the minister of manpower and transmigration – have repeatedly insisted that Yenny can no longer run as a PKB member because she campaigned for the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) in the 2009 elections.
"I doubt that she has branches, what branches? All branches are with us," Abdul said, adding that Yenny did not have her late father's clout.
"After the congress, our agenda is to immediately carry out internal consolidation right down to the branches in the district board," Yenny said on Wednesday.
"For us, the name of the party is a secondary priority," she said, without ruling out the possibility to continue efforts in making peace with Muhaimin's faction.
However, she questioned Muhaimin's objection to her faction using the same name, saying that parties should be defined by their efforts to uplift the people and not by name alone.
"Is he concerned that his camp will suffer the same fate as the PDI [Indonesian Democratic Party] of the government-approved Surjadi faction that was later defeated and disbanded after Megawati Sukarnoputri founded the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle [PDI-P]?" she said.