Carlos Paath – The fact the country's biggest Islamic party remains in the ruling coalition despite its opposition to a fuel price hike signals the increasingly tenuous grip that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has on his government, an analyst says.
Wara Sinuhaji, a political expert at North Sumatra University, said in Medan on Monday by failing to punish the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) for openly defying the coalition's stance on the fuel policy, Yudhoyono was only setting the stage for more "rebellions" to come in the final year of his presidency.
"The lack of stringent punishment from SBY will have a negative impact on the government that he's trying to build," Wara said. "It allows room for other coalition parties to do the same kind of thing that the PKS did."
He added it was crucial for the president to be seen to take a tough stance on the PKS by firing the three PKS ministers in the cabinet.
"Otherwise the public will see the president as too soft. Even the president's own Democratic Party and the other coalition partners are calling for the PKS ministers to be axed," he said.
Wara argued the dissent within the coalition was "an indictment of Yudhoyono's failure" to build a wide-ranging coalition by allying his nationalist Democrats with the conservative PKS. "This decision will come back to bite the Democrats. It could destroy them," Wara said.
Calls for the PKS to be removed have mounted in recent weeks following the party's decision to oppose raising the price of subsidized fuel, which went ahead last week despite its efforts.
The party also went against the coalition when it successfully scuppered an identical bid last year to hike the fuel price. However, the PKS insists that despite its stance on key issues, it remains a committed member of the coalition.
Mardani Ali Sera, a member of the party's central leadership board, said on Monday that while Yudhoyono had "every right to replace the three PKS ministers in the cabinet, it must be noted that our ministers have been crucial to the success of government programs."
"The PKS is still in the coalition. There have been no decisions otherwise by either side," he said.
He also said that senior PKS officials had met privately with Yudhoyono to explain the party's stance on the fuel issue, and both sides had "plenty to communicate about."
"We pointed out that we've been with the government since 2004, and so our contribution shouldn't be based on what's happened in 2013 alone," Mardani said.
"We want our role to be put into a fair perspective. We hope following this communication that the relationship between the PKS and the rest of the coalition will continue to improve."
Mahfudz Siddiq, a PKS deputy secretary general, said separately that the other parties calling for the PKS to be dropped from the coalition were partly to blame for the current controversy.
"If they understood that only the president has the power to determine who stays in the coalition and who doesn't, they would see that there's no need for all these calls to push us out," he said.
"If they're still talking, it's because of their insatiable political lust. But that's their own problem." He added it was clear that some parties only wanted the PKS out so they could take over the cabinet seats currently controlled by the party.
Syarif Hasan, the Democrats' managing chairman, said on Monday that a decision on the PKS's future in the cabinet would come in "the next week or two."