Camelia Pasandaran & April Aswadi – Outrage has greeted the appointment of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ally Rizal Mallarangeng to a senior position in the Golkar Party.

Zainal Bintang, a senior member of the former ruling party, which was hammered in April's legislative elections, said the defection of Mallarangeng from Yudhoyono's Democratic Party to Golkar, where he will head the party's think tank and policy analysis division, showed the yellow party was becoming blue, referring to Golkar's official color, yellow, and the Democrats' blue.

"Rizal Mallarangeng's appointment to a Golkar post has tainted the image of the party," Zainal was quoted by Antara news agency as saying. "He often jumps from one party to another."

Rizal, Yudhoyono's spokesman during the legislative and presidential elections, was a member of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) before joining Yudhoyono's party in 2004.

Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, elected on Wednesday as chairman of Golkar, has widely been expected to bring the party closer to Yudhoyono's ruling coalition, if not join it.

On Friday, Bakrie, who critics believe will use his power to expand his business empire, visited Yudhoyono at his private residence in Cikeas, Bogor.

Andi Mallarangeng, Yudhoyono's spokesman and a brother of Rizal, said the visit was simply a social call by a new political party leader to the president. "The president congratulated him as Golkar has been cooperative with the government," Andi said.

However, at least one observer said the visit most likely involved Bakrie pledging Golkar's support for the next administration in exchange for valuable positions within Yudhoyono's cabinet.

Tjipta Lesmana, a political analyst, said the president may have requested that Bakrie include Rizal on the Golkar Party board.

"Rizal and Yudhoyono are close," he said. "The president may have asked Bakrie to give Rizal a position. The two are not only close, their relationship is like a 'marriage.'?"

However, Tjipta did not rule out the possibility that Rizal, who announced plans to run for the presidency in July but couldn't get any political party to back him, may have been motivated by personal ambition.

"He's an ambitious person," Tjipta said. "He jumped from one party to another just to secure his powerful position."

Despite his party preference, Rizal remains close to Bakrie. His latest position was as an expert staff member at the Office of the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare.