Armando Siahaan – The Golkar Party's road to power could be waylaid by a feud brewing well before the 2014 general elections, one that could wrest away a sizable number of votes.
That threat comes from the National Democrats, a social organization founded by media magnate and former Golkar heavyweight Surya Paloh soon after his defeat last year to Aburizal Bakrie for the Golkar chair. But pundits believe it will not be long before National Democrat transforms itself into a political party in the run-up to the 2014 polls.
On Wednesday, Golkar seemed to acknowledge the group's political ambitions by warning all party members to dissociate themselves from the group. "We call on all our members to not participate in anything linked with the National Democrats," Golkar secretary general Idrus Marham said.
Among the Golkar stalwarts now aligned with the National Democrats are Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, Syamsul Maarif and Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono.
"Surya Paloh is in a position to take away at least 20 to 35 percent of Golkar's votes," said Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a political analyst from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI).
He pointed to the Aceh native's 44 percent showing during the Golkar chairman election in Pekanbaru, Riau province, as evidence of his pulling power.
Yunarto Wijaya, a political analyst from Charta Politika, said the National Democrats' figureheads of Surya and Hamengkubuwono would be a huge draw for voters, and added that Syamsul and Ferry were skilled in rustling up grassroots support.
"Just looking at their leadership structure, the National Democrats could affect Golkar's performance significantly," Yunarto said.
The threat is not an unprecedented one. Prior to the 2009 elections, two influential Golkar members, Prabowo Subianto and Wiranto, both retired military generals, split from the party to set up the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) respectively.
That fragmentation cost Golkar dearly. Gerindra took 4.46 percent of votes in that year's polls, while Hanura took 3.77 percent. If those figures were combined with Golkar's 14.45 percent, then the party would have had as many seats at the House of Representatives as the ruling Democratic Party does.
Burhanuddin said extending the olive branch to Surya would be the party's best bet at getting the National Democrats back on board and mitigating the risk of a costly split. However, that opportunity may have been lost after Aburizal overlooked Surya for a place on the Golkar executive board.
"Both men are pillars of the party, but the spat between them has turned ugly real fast," Burhanuddin said. "Golkar is the party that stands to lose the most should the National Democrats decide to mobilize as a political party."
But the rift with Surya is only one of many problems that Golkar is grappling with. In the short term, it has to recover from the massive backlash to its pork-barrel proposal, in which it called for each House legislator to be given a Rp 15 billion development fund for their constituencies.
It received a roasting from other parties, top government ministers, budget watchdogs and the public. House Speaker Marzuki Alie, a Democrat, called it tantamount to a "theft of state funds."
It also rocked the boat that Aburizal skippered as chairman of the ruling coalition's joint secretariat. A rash threat to quit the coalition by Golkar's Yamin Tawari was derided by its partners as the kind of prima donna move Golkar was renowned for.
Analysts also point to the ruckus as evidence that Aburizal's appointment as coalition head is not a foregone conclusion of his growing favor with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Burhanuddin said Golkar's woes also stemmed from its failure to produce electrifying figureheads to galvanize votes, in the mold of the Democrats' Yudhoyono and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle's (PDI-P) Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Reliance on a strong, popular, central figure is still a big part of Indonesian political culture, analysts say, where people vote based on the party's No. 1 rather than on platforms and ideology. "Golkar as an institution is formidable, but the lack of such figures means it's hemorrhaging support," Burhanuddin said.
The party is also blighted by its association to Aburizal, primarily over his family-controlled mining companies that are implicated in a tax-evasion and corruption scandal involving rogue tax official Gayus Tambunan.
The case is an extension of Aburizal's long-running feud with former finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, stemming from the latter's refusal to halt trading while share prices in Bakrie-controlled companies plummeted.