Anas says the battle has just begun

JAKARTA. A day after being criminally charged by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Anas Urbaningrum on Saturday stepped down from his position as Democratic Party chairman, but warned his foes that his downfall was not the end of the ongoing political struggle within the ruling party.

Anas, who has been accused of accepting a gratuity from the construction firm that won the tender for the graft-ridden Hambalang sports complex project while serving as a lawmaker in 2009, announced his resignation in a press conference attended by his loyalists at the party’s central executive office in Jakarta.

Donning the blue Democratic Party jacket, Anas told reporters he knew that he would be named a suspect before the KPK announced it on Friday, suggesting that it was part of a systematic plot against him.

“I had known since the party’s supreme assembly issued a decision containing a provision ordering me to focus on my legal problems,” he said, referring to party chief patron and supreme assembly chairman President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s eight policies to restore the party’s reputation and electability.

“It doesn’t take a genius to be able to connect the dots, to see that all of these actions have been orchestrated against me,” he said.

But Anas made it clear that “any kind of orchestration, no matter how sophisticated or how powerful the people behind it are, will surely be overcome.” The young politician said the KPK’s decision to name him a graft suspect was not the end of his battle.

“Today I am making it clear that this is just the beginning and this is still very far from the end. Like a book, we have merely flipped opened the first page. There are so many pages waiting to be unveiled, for our own good.”

“In the following days, this party will be tested. We will see if it really adheres to its ‘clean, smart and ethical’ slogan. We will learn if it is instead just the opposite,” he went on.

Siti Zuhro, a political analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said that Anas’ statement could be seen as a sign that he would spill the beans on his political rivals within the party, including President Yudhoyono and his family, and supporters.

“Anas was basically saying that he would, little by little, unveil the party’s dirty laundry to the public,” she said.

Yudhoyono, as the party’s supreme assembly chairman, has intensified communications with senior party members known to be his loyalists and eight other members of the assembly following Anas’ statement.

On Saturday night, assembly members met at Yudhoyono’s residence in Cikeas, West Java. Earlier, House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Alie said that the meeting was supposed to be held on Sunday.

The assembly would be preparing organizational steps following Anas’ resignation, such as appointing an acting chairman before holding an extraordinary congress to elect Anas’ definitive successor, according to Marzuki.

Sources within the party, however, said that Yudhoyono and his close supporters had been launching efforts to secure support from party branches in provinces, municipalities and regencies in hopes that support from the regional executives could be secured during the upcoming election.

A party source said that later on Saturday, Yudhoyono talked with various party provincial leaders in a teleconference from his home. According to the source, the extraordinary congress is slated to be held on Tuesday in Bali.

Marzuki himself, meanwhile, has been touted as a candidate to replace Anas. But analysts said the most probable candidates would be party secretary-general and Yudhoyono’s son Edhie “Ibas” Baskoro Yudhoyono and Indonesian Army chief of staff and Yudhoyono’s brother-in-law Gen. Pramono Edhie Wibowo.

Anas, in his statement on Friday, said that the KPK’s move to name him a suspect had involved “interference from those in power”, even though he said he still believed that the antigraft body would remain independent.

Bagus T. Saragih / The Jakarta Post