John McBeth and Margot Cohen, Jakarta – On a late-August evening, senior officials of Golkar, Indonesia's ruling party, filed out into the dark after a five-hour conclave at the home of President B.J. Habibie. The official word was that the beleaguered and embattled party now stood united. In truth, its members were deeply split.

The discussions were punctuated, according to people present, by rancorous exchanges over an issue that now fixates Indonesian – money politics. At one point, according to party Vice-Chairman Marzuki Darusman, President Habibie flew into a rage in response to warnings from Marzuki that his election bid was doomed if people close to him were seen as buying the presidency.

"He said I should disqualify myself if I even thought we could lose the election," recalls Marzuki, who opposed Habibie's selection as the party candidate earlier this year. "He was in such a fit of rage I had no reason to respond; everyone was just looking at him."

The incident, confirmed by senior party official Eki Syachrudin, shows how deep are the divisions within Golkar as it approaches the event that will determine its future role after three decades in power during the Suharto era. Those splits are now being widened by the Bank Bali scandal, which involved the transfer of 546 billion rupiah ($70 million) in public funds to a company controlled by Golkar's deputy treasurer, Setya Novanto. Although the evidence remains sketchy, many Indonesians believe a sizable chunk went to a war chest held by backers of Habibie's election bid. The aim of these supporters, many fear, is to buy up votes when the members of Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly meet to elect the president in two months' time. Marzuki himself believes as much as 200 billion rupiah went into the Habibie war chest. Local media reports say it now contains more than 1.3 trillion rupiah.

The identity of the president's backers is almost as controversial. They are known as Tim Sukses ("Team Success"), an informal group of political allies and Habibie family members whose activities on the president's behalf have become a topic of national speculation. A recent opinion poll in Tempo magazine showed that half the respondents believed Tim Sukses was responsible for the Bank Bali case. In an indicator of the damage the bank scandal could do to both Habibie and Golkar, another poll in the magazine showed that just 9% viewed Habibie as a "fit and proper" person to serve as president. Before the scandal broke on July 20, the figure had been 39%.

For Marzuki, the question of whether the Bank Bali money made its way to Tim Sukses is "the whole issue now," and could determine whether the party is prepared to unite behind Habibie when it holds its final leadership meeting on October 20. Other Golkar opponents of his bid to keep the presidency have already made up their minds. "By staying there, Habibie will only distort the reform process and jeopardize the fabric of the nation," says former Golkar Secretary-General Sarwono Kusumaadmadja, pointing to the twin problems of corruption and fraying national unity – the crises in Aceh in East Timor.

Habibie's supporters, however, remain determined. They argue that the general election that took place in June and the presidential election due on November 10 are two different processes. One was decided by the masses while the other will be settled by the new national assembly composed of the 500 members of the House of Representatives elected in June and a number of appointed members. The fact that voters backed opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri in the June election doesn't mean the assembly must follow suit, the president's supporters say.

Could Habibie's supporters buy the presidency despite the opposition's triumph in the general election? "I think so," says Rachmat Witoelar, another former Golkar secretary-general. "There's a widespread belief it can be done because the appointed members of the assembly are vulnerable people."

Little is known for sure about the low-profile Tim Sukses, mentions of which first began appearing in Indonesian media about five months ago. It's believed to be built around a close-knit core of associates from Sulawesi, Habibie's birthplace. "The major players might not be saying that it exists," says James Van Zorge, a political analyst and publisher of the Van Zorge Report, a twice-weekly publication on Indonesian politics, "but no one is denying it either. Of course it exists."

Eki, the senior Golkar official who confirmed Marzuki's account of the August meeting, and who led the party's election committee in the June poll, also confirms the group's existence. He says it was formed about six months ago after Habibie narrowly got his nomination accepted in the plenary session held to choose Golkar's presidential candidate. "Habibie was not sure he had the trust of Golkar," says Eki, "so he created his own team."

Eki says the group includes Habibie's two brothers, Effendy ("Fanny") and Suyatim ("Timmy"); State Advisory Council Chairman Arnold Baramuli, who is also a member of Golkar's board of advisers; and Hariman Siregar, a former student activist who was jailed for his role in 1974 riots in Jakarta. Media reports and another party source say other members include Setya, the Golkar deputy treasurer whose company received the Bank Bali cash, and State Enterprise Minister Tanri Abeng. Tanri has been tagged by local media as one of Habibie's main fundraisers – a description he rejected in a faxed response to the Review.

Another Tim Sukses member, according to a party source, is Nurdin Halid, former head of a clove monopoly run by Tommy Suharto, a son of former President Suharto. Nurdin said in a recent media interview that Tim Sukses has been campaigning throughout the country's 27 provinces. He said part of its strategy was to target opposition-party officials in remote provinces in a bid to secure votes among the 135 assembly members nominated by regional parties.

But Tim Sukses may be prepared to do more than just campaign. One of its key figures, asked by the Review in early June if he thought the assembly could be bought, responded: "Pastilah [Certainly]." This man, who insisted on anonymity, also said the parliamentary elections shouldn't be taken seriously. "For me, this election is only an International Monetary Fund package. They need a legitimate government to protect their money."

Marzuki has no doubts that Tim Sukses is prepared to buy votes: "Their job is to secure the numbers," he says. "I have no doubt money politics is involved and that people around Habibie are using money politics to win his presidency. There's a general sense and belief these are real happenings. It's not easy to corroborate in terms of real evidence, but transactions are happening, there is no doubt."

Elements of the military are also worried. Lt.-Gen. Agum Gumelar, governor of the National Defence Institute, told a closed-door gathering in Singapore in early August that anyone who uses money to win the presidency "won't last long," according to someone who was present. Speaking to officers attending summer school at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies, Agum said the army is only obliged to support a president who comes to power through "just and fair means."

The old-style politics of Tim Sukses also faces resistance from Indonesia's middle classes, chastened by cronyism's contribution to the Asian Crisis.

Sarwono, a former senior figure in Golkar, believes an amalgam of honest bureaucrats, journalists, lawyers and others disgusted by corruption are in the vanguard of opposition. "There is this white-collar conspiracy with state funds being embezzled and diverted for personal or political purposes, and what we're seeing is a white-collar network fighting it," Sarwono says. Political sources say Indonesian Corruption Watch, a private watchdog, has recorded 40 corruption cases involving figures in the Habibie administration. For Habibie the risk is that the perceptions of wrongdoing surrounding Tim Sukses will lose him the support of even more members of Golkar and deepen its divisions. Even presidential adviser Dewi Fortuna Anwar lamely admitted recently that "the president can't do much, even when he is so clean and honest, because so many people around him aren't clean."