Jayapura/Jakarta. There was confusion and infighting as the Papuan branch of the United Development Party voted to elect its leader for the 2011-2016 period on Wednesday, with two candidates laying claim to the position.
The central board of the party also known as PPP said Bachtiar Gaffar was the rightful head of the Papua branch because he was chosen by the majority of leaders of the party’s district boards in the province.
“The PPP central board only recognizes the results of the meeting between 13 of 21 district boards across Papua which chose Bachtiar Gaffar to lead the party,” Emron Pangkapi, a member of PPP’s central board, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Emron stressed that Bachtiar was the only legal leader of PPP in the province, and the party did not recognize Muchdi Purwoprandjono’s rival claim to the position.
Earlier in the day, provincial branch officials had announced that Muchdi, a controversial former intelligence official linked to the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib, had been elected to lead the Papuan branch of the PPP.
Reba Dwiseno Pontoh, the sitting provincial head, accompanied by his deputy Aang Sontani, said according to existing regulations Muchdi’s election did not violate any rules.
“It shows there is a possibility that anyone can lead the PPP, as long as they are the right person for the job,” Reba said.
According to Emron, deliberations on the new leader of PPP Papua were opened by Suryadharma Ali, the party’s national chairman and religious affairs minister, at the hajj dormitory in Jayapura on Saturday. Discussions then continued at the nearby Hotel Mustagco.
“When we held a plenary session to assess the opinion of the leaders of the district boards, the majority rejected the report from the provincial head [Reba], as they considered he had not done anything for the people of Papua over the last five years,” Emron said.
A group of 13 leaders from the party’s district boards then staged a walk out, saying they could not accept the report offered by Reba. They continued deliberations separately at Jayapura’s Hotel Sentani, where Bachtiar was chosen to lead the party in the province.
In February, Muchdi announced that he was abandoning the nationalist Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) he helped create to join the PPP.
Ever since he made the move, observers have speculated that Muchdi has designs on the PPP chairmanship and hopes to get it out of the Democratic Party-led ruling coalition and form an alliance with Gerindra.
Publicly, PPP leaders have welcomed Muchdi, but insiders close to party chairman Suryadarma say that he is privately worried about Muchdi’s reported ambitions to lead the party.