Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Vice President Jusuf Kalla made sure on Friday that no one, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, could defy him without risking a political scandal.

If both men have managed to keep previous disagreements under the rug, the recent furor over Yudhoyono's creation of a new working unit to monitor his programs may be an indication that the two have not been getting along well.

Kalla said Friday he had convinced Yudhoyono that the new working unit was not necessary.

"I and the President agree that the Cabinet already has a built-in system of coordination. I will coordinate the implementation of programs, the details of them, and the ministers will do the rest. There's no need to have more people doing that," he said after opening a Golkar Party convention.

Yudhoyono established his working unit less than two months ago to monitor, control and accelerate his programs. The unit is concentrating on state-owned enterprises, small and medium-sized firms, law enforcement, increasing investment and improving the bureaucracy.

The first sign of scandal was when Yudhoyono floated the idea earlier this year. Kalla was on a trip to Japan. When journalists asked him about the plan, he knew nothing about it.

In the early days, both leaders agreed that Kalla was to focus more on economic issues and Yudhoyono on security and political matters. Some political observers see the creation of the team as an effort by Yudhoyono to encroach on Kalla's domain.

When the team's head, Marsillam Simanjuntak, joined a Cabinet meeting for the first time last week, Kalla also happened to be out of town. The scandal grew as analysts concluded the new unit, which works under the President's direct supervision, only created more layers of bureaucracy and overlapping assignments.

Worse, the decree that established the team said the President was assisted by the Vice President in creating it, which was not the case.

Golkar has warned it could withdraw its support from Yudhoyono, saying he had disrespected their chairman and that the people chosen for the effort were not of good quality.

Marsillam is not a Golkar member, while the unit's first deputy, Lt. Gen. (ret) Agus Widjojo, is Yudhoyono's longtime friend.

Kalla said the decree would not be revoked, but Yudhoyono would review it. "This unit will handle the technical issues. We have enough built-in coordination in the Cabinet," he said.

The review was promised when Kalla met with Yudhoyono at the presidential office, after which the two men attended Friday prayers together for the first time in nearly two years at the State Palace's Baiturrahman mosque.

Meanwhile, presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said after Yudhoyono and Kalla met that the two men were still on the same page. "The meeting wasn't something extraordinary. Things were well-understood and well-discussed," he said.

The rivalry between the two leaders is not new, and is linked to their different styles of leadership and to competition for the public's heart.

When Yudhoyono issued an instruction in 2005 that included him in the selection of directors for state enterprises, it was also seen as an effort to reduce Kalla's power in the economic field.

A rumored rift also sparked media headlines last year when Yudhoyono, on a trip to Washington, insisted on using costly video conferencing to lead Cabinet meetings even after delegating the task to Kalla. The vice president was then absent from those meetings, instead attending Golkar functions or holding his own Cabinet meetings.