Muninggar Sri Saraswati – Still smarting over the perceived treachery of its coalition partners in the Bank Century bailout investigation, the ruling Democratic Party vowed on Wednesday to press ahead with a proposal for a sweeping overhaul of the cabinet.

Ahmad Mubarok, deputy chairman of the Democrats, said that as soon as the party's central leadership board had completed a revised coalition agreement, which would contain concrete details about the relationship between coalition partners, it would forward its recommendations to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Ahmad said the Democrats decided to draft the recommendations after seeing three of their coalition partners – the Golkar Party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the United Development Party (PPP) – vote to find the Bank Century bailout illegal.

"I won't say that ministers from the political parties are useless," he said. "But facts show that senior members of the political parties who are members of the cabinet have had no effect."

Declining to identify the parties or individuals concerned, Ahmad said that though party chairmen had apparently instructed their members about which way to vote ahead of the House of Representatives plenary session convened to determine the legality or otherwise of the bailout, the "subordinates in the House refused to follow."

Three parties voted against the government's stance that the 2008 rescue of Bank Century was necessary as the lender posed a systemic risk to the domestic banking sector at the height of the global financial crisis. Of those, only the PPP has a chairman, Suryadharma Ali, serving in the cabinet. Suryadharma is the religious affairs minister.

The PPP faction in the House has sent him a formal apology for it decision to vote that the bailout was illegal, against his order.

Ahmad, in some of the strongest hints yet from the Democrats that a cabinet reshuffle was in the cards, said the "current coalition is fat but ineffective" and that "our party wants a slim but effective coalition."

He said the Democrats had been "seriously discussing" the removal of cabinet ministers aligned to political parties within the coalition. "If their presence is having no effect, it is better to seek [new ministers] from among professionals," he said.

Ever since Yudhoyono unveiled his United Indonesia II cabinet last year, critics have savaged the president for appointing a number of officials from coalition parties to senior positions in the government despite their questionable track records and lack of many of the desired qualifications.

Ahmad acknowledged the Democrats had held "minor discussions" with the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) about it joining the coalition government, but said that the results of the discussions "should not be made public yet."

Analysts believe there is little chance of the PDI-P joining the coalition given the animosity between its chairwoman, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Yudhoyono, though the party concedes the issue will be discussed during its national congress in Bali in May.