Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – The leadership of the Golkar Party and the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party have shrugged off a Democratic Party threat to thwart their presidential aspirations.
During a press conference on Wednesday, two executives of the Democratic Party – Ulil Abshar Abdalla and Rachland Nashidik – said that the main objective of the party was to prevent either Gerindra chief patron Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto or Golkar chairman Aburizal Bakrie from securing the country's top job in 2014.
"From my perspective, the primary task for the Democratic Party now is to prevent Prabowo and Aburizal from becoming the country's next president. If the Democratic Party fails in becoming a great party then it will fail in stopping the other political parties," Rachland said in a press conference to respond to accusations leveled by former Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum at the family of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Rachland, a former human rights campaigner, said that Indonesia risked becoming a pariah state if its next leader had a record of human rights abuses, a statement that alluded to Prabowo.
A member of Gerindra's board of patrons, Martin Hutabarat, called the statement "amateurish". He considered Ulil and Rachland as junior politicians within the Democratic Party who had yet to gain sufficient political skills.
Martin said that the statement did not represent the official stance of the Democrats and reflected the worries of some politicians about the soaring popularity of Prabowo.
"The improving electability rating of Prabowo should not be seen as a threat by other figures or political parties. It should be seen as having a positive impact for the country's future," Martin said.
Golkar deputy chairman Agung Laksono said Rachland's statement did not represent the official stance of his party. "I don't want to muddy the waters by commenting on that. It was a personal statement. It is not the mission and vision of the party, so it is better for me not to comment on that," Agung told reporters.
He said that if Golkar decided to formally respond to the statement it would only provoke unnecessary tension.
Both Aburizal and Prabowo have been implicated in cases concerning human rights violations.
A report published by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in 2003 alleged that Prabowo, then commander of the Army's once notorious Special Forces Command (Kopassus), was responsible for gross human rights violations that occurred during extensive rioting in Jakarta in 1998, which preceded the end of former president Soeharto's long regime.
The investigation found that "security authorities at that time failed to curb widespread rioting that took place simultaneously".
In August last year, Komnas HAM announced that the Lapindo mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, was a human rights violation and that the oil and gas company PT Lapindo Brantas, which is owned by Aburizal, was responsible for the man-made disaster.
Earlier this year, the government pushed for the establishment of an ad hoc human rights tribunal to hear cases of gross human rights violations that took place during the May 1998 riots, which could become a stumbling block for the presidential aspirations of Prabowo.