Susan Sim and Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid is taking a leaf from former President Suharto's manual for regime maintenance and cementing his iron grip on the Nation Awakening Party (PKB), the fourth-biggest winner in last year's election.
In a move already criticised as reminiscent of the way Mr Suharto ensured the total loyalty of the Golkar party, Mr Abdurrahman took over as chief of the PKB's advisory council in an uncontested election at the close of the party congress in Surabaya late on Wednesday.
His first job was to pick the party's titular chairman, which he did by ruling out challengers to the incumbent, Mr Matori Abdul Djalil. Mr Matori, who had been in danger of losing his post because of a perceived independent streak, was warned not to pack the executive board with his own supporters and to minimise graft by separating personal funds from party finances.
His continued leadership of the party, which won 51 seats in parliamentary elections last year, would appear to augur well for Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, for he was one of her main supporters during last year's presidential election.
His retention by Mr Abdurrahman, who used to head the almost 40- million strong Nahdlatul Ulama movement from which PKB emerged, is also seen as another of the president's efforts to patch up ties with an increasingly more disapproving Ms Megawati.
Mr Matori had said earlier in the week that he would maintain the party's coalition with her Indonesian Democratic Party – Struggle (PDI-P) and the military, rather than joining the loose coalition of Islamic parties, the Axis Force, which helped Mr Abdurrahman to victory last year. His purpose in "befriending Ms Megawati" was to consolidate power so that the party could defend the President until his term ended in 2004, he added. But analysts here noted that he had also talked about the Vice-president not being ready to assume the top post yet rather than rule her out completely.
By contrast, President Abdurrahman, popularly known as Gus Dur, also signaled that his faith and trust in Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab had waned considerably when he told the PKB's powerful East Java chapter to drop its endorsement of Mr Alwi's candidacy for party chairman.
The minister, once lauded by Gus Dur as the new, intellectual face of NU, had been tipped to take over as PKB chairman months ago. But now other presidential confidantes speak disdainfully of brewing graft scandals.
Although told by Mr Abdurrahman that he could not contest the post because he was needed in the Cabinet, Mr Alwi still left the Asean ministerial meeting in Bangkok on Wednesday morning to attend the Surabaya congress.
Despite the fact that Gus Dur did obtain considerable mass support, especially from Java, to pick the party chairman himself rather than leave it to an internal election he could have controlled as easily, the comparisons with Mr Suharto are still there.
As chairman of Golkar's advisory board, Mr Suharto too handpicked the party's top bosses. That board was promptly dissolved two years ago and among the top six parties, Golkar, ironically, now has perhaps the most open process for electing its chairman.
Despite Gus Dur's failure to use the Surabaya congress to showcase PKB as a model democratic party rather than one run in a somewhat feudalistic manner, it is also clear that he does require an official political vehicle now should he want to defend his seat in 2004 or be in a position to choose his own successor.