Febriamy Hutapea & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Having been defeated in this year's legislative and presidential polls, the future of the Golkar Party now hangs on its ability to encourage young leaders, experts said on Thursday.

Lili Romli, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said that the party would stagnate if it stuck with its old leadership. "The old generation should be removed and replaced by the young generation if Golkar doesn't want to lose its spirit," he said.

Lili said the current leadership failed because most had only used their positions to further their own political interests instead of boosting the party's performance. "That's why a change in the party's leadership is strongly needed," he said.

Indra J Piliang, a Golkar politician, said if the party did not refresh its leadership it would be left behind by other factions. He said the Democratic Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) were already busy preparing fresh faces for leadership in 2014.

What Golkar needed, Indra said, were people who were mobile, not afraid to be unpopular and not simply focused on power. "Whether Golkar fades into legend or becomes a new organization will depend on the new leadership," he said.

Abdul Gafur Sangadji, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia, said Golkar needed to renew and reform itself to regain the trust of voters.

He added that the money politics prevalent among Golkar cadres had weakened their idealism and their will to mobilize the party's political machine.