The Democratic Party has not seen its founding members and only seen a few of its senior politicians take a key role in deciding the party's course.

Newcomers with vast financial resources have seemed to sideline the party's old guards, who are mostly comprised of less-affluent people, the party's senior and former politician claimed.

Core party founders who fought hard to set up the party and promote the party's chief patron Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (now the President) to gain nation-wide recognition no longer have direct roles in the party.

The founders include Ventje Rumangkang, Ahmad Mubarok, the late A. Yani Wachid, Subur Budhisantoso, Irzan Tanjung, RMH. Heroe Syswanto Ns (Sys NS), R.F. Saragih, Dardji Darmodihardjo, Rizald Max Rompas and Rusli Ramli.

Ventje, Mubarok, Subur and Irzan are accommodated into the party's advisory board, but without authority to manage the party.

Ventje, a businessman and the party's initiator and early financier, was among the first to jump ship in 2005. But he rejoined the party in 2010 at the request of Yudhoyono. His move was also followed by celebrity Sys NS, who left the party in 2007. Sys was known as Yudhoyono's stage director during the 2004 election campaign.

Both Ventje and Sys had set up their own parties to compete in the 2009 general election, but without success.

Allegations of graft in the party's recruitment of politicians, coupled with Yudhoyono's poor leadership, are blamed for igniting disappointment among the party's founders.

"The root causes of the current infighting are none other than the poor recruitment process from the very beginning," said Ventje. As a new party that promptly leapt to power, the Dems have attracted many figures with vested interests.

"Many local leaders and politicians from other parties joined the Dems merely to seek protection against corruption prosecution," said Ventje. "And there are also many politicians who failed to gain a strategic post at their previous parties buying their way into joining us."

A spike in such practices occurred when Yudhoyono's brother-in-law Hadi Utomo served the party's chairman between 2005 and 2010.

Politician Marzuki Alie is an example of how a newcomer can easily clinch a strategic post at the party. Marzuki, now the House of Representatives' speaker, was appointed by Hadi as the party's secretary-general despite reports of his alleged involvement in a graft case.

The Attorney General's Office, however, terminated in 2009 an investigation into Marzuki's alleged role in inflating the cost of a factory construction project of state cement company PT Semen Baturaja, citing a lack of evidence.

Muhammad Nazaruddin, a former United Development Party (PPP) politician who failed to secure a legislative seat during the 2004 election, also joined the Dems in 2005 and was given the deputy treasurer post.

Nazaruddin, who is now a fugitive for a series of graft allegations, was brought into the party by Jhonny Allen Marbun, who is currently mired in a graft case. Jhonny's case is still being investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission.

"Back then there were just too many people with dubious backgrounds flocking into the party and receiving strategic posts. This has created a kind of rift among the party's senior politicians," said Sys NS. One of the party's senior politicians said the newcomers could secured top jobs at the party because they had greater financial resources than the party's earliest activists.

"As the party's chief patron, Yudhoyono could not prevent Hadi from recruiting and promoting people with dubious backgrounds despite pledging to keep graft out of his very own backyard," said the politician. "He seemed to be powerless when dealing with members of his wife's family."

Power play at the Dems shifted in May 2010 when Anas Urbaningrum was elected as chairman, bringing in a compartment of a newer and younger generation of politicians into managing the party. But the party's politicians deemed to have dubious backgrounds remained the party's management backbone.

Jhonny was appointed deputy chairman with Nazaruddin as chief treasurer. Former General Election Commission deputy chairwoman Andi Nurpati was also recruited last year and was given a top post at the party, but only to create a bad name. The police are currently investigating Andi's role in faking a verdict document issued by the Constitutional Court.

Analysts have cited Anas' inability to well accommodate the party's senior members is one reason for the prolonged infighting.

Yudhoyono's failure to have his hopeful Andi Mallarangeng as the party's chairman during the 2010 chairmanship election race has also ignited a kind of "cold war" between Yudhoyono, supported mostly by senior politicians, and Anas, supported vastly by junior politicians.

"How to resolve the fighting? I believe it is time for the party to root out the bad apples and overhaul its recruitment process. Just look at the Golkar Party. While they give opportunities for new members to join, the party's management could only be run by senior politicians already with long carriers in the party," said Ventje.