Ezra Sihite – The Democratic Party played down media reports of a leaked speech by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during an internal party meeting on April 1, but said it would investigate who released the speech.
Yudhoyono, the chief patron of the party, shared his anger with party cadres over other parties' disagreement with the government's proposal to raise subsidized fuel prices on April 1.
The Democratic Party was the only member of the government coalition to hold steady to the original plan to raise prices by 33 percent, from Rp 4,500 (50 cents) to Rp 6,000 per liter.
Four other members of the coalition demanded a higher Indonesian Crude Price (ICP) threshold as a requirement for the hikes, and another member, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), rejected the proposal entirely, following the moves of three opposition parties.
The House of Representatives plenary session discussed the proposal until early morning on March 31 and decided to delay the planned hikes.
"[The rejection of the proposal] yesterday was very alarming. We may collapse. The [rejection] is not on behalf of people, but is aimed at bringing down SBY, the government and the Democratic Party," Yudhoyono was quoted as saying in the April 1 speech, a recording of which was obtained and then published by Tempo magazine on Wednesday.
"They said they wanted this and that, but the point is they want the government to quickly collapse. Surely no president wants to be treated like that, and there's no way we shouldn't fight over this," he added.
Deputy secretary-general of the Democratic Party, Saan Mustopa, said there should be no worries about the reportedly-leaked speech, adding the party would immediately investigate whether it was really Yudhoyono's speech quoted in the media.
"They were ordinary directives. Pak SBY only briefed us on some background information; there was nothing extraordinary, no intention to split [the coalition]. We have no worries about the possible impact if [the speech] was indeed leaked," Saan said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
"We'll follow-up on this. That meeting was supposed to be internal. We want to know if it's leaked, who has leaked it. We won't respond to this exaggeratedly, but we regret this incident." (BeritaSatu/JG)