Jakarta – The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is considering reducing its commitment to the government coalition in response to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's dismissal of one of its members from the Cabinet.

The President announced Tuesday that he replaced Research and Technology Minister (and PKS member) Suharna Surapranata with Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta, while appointing Papua's Cendrawasih University rector Balthasar Kambuaya as the new environment minister.

PKS chairman Luthfi Hasan Ishaq said Suharna's dismissal was a sign of the President's reduced commitment to the PKS.

"With the President's commitment to PKS being reduced, our party members demand that the [PKS] commitment to the President is also reduced," Luthfi said at the residence of PKS chief patron Hilmi Aminuddin in Bandung on Tuesday evening.

Luthfi added, however, that PKS had yet to decide what it would do to reflect its reduction in commitment. "The patron board will decide," Lutfi said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

PKS deputy secretary-general Mahfudz Siddiq, meanwhile, said the dismissal of Suharsa was a violation to the coalition contract that Yudhoyono had signed with the PKS around time of the President's re-election in 2009. Mahfudz said this contract needed to be renewed, or the PKS would leave the Democratic Party-led coalition.