[Corruption investigations into the speaker of Indonesia's parliament have taken a bizarre turn. House speaker Akbar Tanjung is under arrest over the diversion of 40 billion rupiah – or about 8 million Australian dollars – from a government agency. The funds went missing when Mr Akbar was state secretary in 1999, and were allegedly used to finance Golkar's election campaign – but at the weekend, another suspect in the case returned most of the missing money. Despite this, a former colleague says Akbar Tanjung's political career is now finished and Golkar should seize the opportunity to reform.]

Presenter/Interviewer: Peter Mares. Speakers: Sarwono Kusumaatmadja the former Minister for Fisheries and Marine Affairs and Secretary General of Golkar in the 1980s.

Sarwono: My hope is that the law will be upheld and that if he is really guilty he will be treated accordingly, and this is an opportunity as well for Golkar to find new leadership and there is a lot of material there from the younger set of Golkar people. So if they make up their mind to refresh themselves, they should not have any problems with that.

Mares: So do you think that Golkar the party is now going to wash its hands of Akbar Tanjung?

Sarwono: I think it should because irrespective of the findings, his legitimacy has just gone down the drain. So it would be better for them to find an alternative.

Mares: How much damage could this do to Golkar as an organisation?

Sarwono: Well the damage can be caused by an insistence to keep Akbar and the rest of his retinue within Golkar. But if they are wise enough to be shot of him, then they will have a chance to find a new life for themselves.

Mares: Golkar was created really by former President Suharto. It was not so much a political party as an organisation...

Sarwono: I liken Golkar to the director general for elections and I called it the party of rulers, not the ruling party. So it has to transform itself and so Golkar will have to rely on the twenty percent of its membership which is truly political, not the bureaucrats and the people from the military.

Mares: So you are saying that eighty percent of the membership are only members because they are public servants or military officers?

Sarwono: That's right, and by law, these people are not members of Golkar any more, so Golkar has a reserve of twenty per cent to rely on and that should be more than enough to pave the way for the future – if they intend to do that.

Mares: Is it worth saving the organisation though, or is it too discredited to bother with?

Sarwono: Oh yes definitely. It depends on how it is able to crystalise itself and distance itself from the people who I would call the high-jackers in Golkar.

Mares: Why do you call them high-jackers?

Sarwono: Because they are apparently using Golkar to further their own ends, to get themselves access to public office so that they can be immune from prosecution. That is the sense I get from the kind of people they have as a leadership. So this case against Akbar is really an opportunity for Golkar to find a new life, because judging from its platform, it is not a bad party for Indonesia. It is an open party, non-sectarian, it has a modern party infrastructure which has proved itself at the last election, gaining twenty per cent of the votes, so there is a lot of good material in there, you know, to make a future.

Mares: How strong though is the Akbar Tanjung faction within the party still?

Sarwono: Well I think that they are hanging on by a thread now, because the push for reform is getting bigger at the grassroots level. The best they can do for themselves is buy time, but sooner or later they will have to see themselves as not being part of the party any more.