Febriamy Hutapea – Following reports of rifts within the parties supporting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's re-election drive, a Democratic Party leader on Tuesday called on the coalition members to deal with their internal disagreements.

Syarif Hasan, chairman of the House of Representatives' Democratic faction, said the coalition should be more grounded in supporting the candidacy of Yudhoyono and his vice presidential candidate, former Bank Indonesia Governor Boediono, in the July 8 presidential polls.

"We hope the issues can be resolved soon," he said. "I understand that the political dynamics in each party need time [to settle], but I hope the process will not take too long."

Some key parties in the Democrat-led coalition have displayed dissent within their ranks, raising fear among Democratic leaders that Yudhoyono's re-election chances may be undermined.

In one of the latest examples of the instability, some members of the National Mandate Party (PAN) unexpectedly attended the recent launch of the campaign of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Prabowo Subianto of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).

At the launch on Sunday, a PAN member walked onto the stage and told the audience that his party had made the wrong decision by supporting Yudhoyono. "The members of PAN are now ready to support Megawati and Prabowo," he said.

Dozens of supporters of the United Development Party (PPP), another member of the Yudhoyono-led coalition, also reportedly attended Sunday's event.

Syarif said he hoped that the push to raise parties' awareness of the need to toe the line in supporting Yudhoyono's bid would resolve any issues. "We hope that it can be conducted soon because we want to form a permanent coalition," he said.

Meanwhile, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), which so far appears to be the only party other than the Democrats solidly in support of the Yudhoyono-Boediono pairing, said power sharing with the Democrats would only be discussed in detail once the election was concluded.

"We've discussed the principles of power sharing, which will be proportional," said Mahfudz Siddiq, PKS's faction chairman. "But as for details like how many people and who the people are will only be decided after the presidential election." Mahfudz said that PKS was still "processing and preparing as many names as possible," to propose for cabinet appointments if Yudhoyono and Boediono were to achieve victory in July.