Jakarta. The National Awakening Party (PKB) has dismissed Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas and two other prominent figures amid escalating tension between the party and the country’s biggest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).

PKB Deputy Chairman Hanif Dhakiri said recently that Yaqut, NU Chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf, and Lukman Edy have been fired by the party for serious violations of internal rulings.

The trio wasn’t invited to the PKB national congress in Bali later this week.

"Mr. Yahya, Mr. Lukman, and Mr. Yaqut automatically lost their membership because they had campaigned for other parties and publicly attacked PKB’s honor," Hanif said.

In response, Minister Yaqut called his dismissal a joke.

"I was fired? There is no letter sent to me and they just fired people ahead of the congress. This is a joke. I’m still a PKB member now," Yaqut told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday.

He said the party’s guidelines don’t allow the PKB chairman to arbitrarily dismiss members without approval from the central leadership board, which first must seek clarification from the members concerned before making a decision.

"They never invited me, let alone seeking clarification from me. When did I campaign for a different party? This dismissal is absurd,” he said.

The Nahdlatul Ulama has historically been the incubator for PKB, with both bound by the values of moderate Islam and pluralism championed by the late President Abdurrahman Wahid, or Gus Dur.

However, the two entities have found themselves in conflict over various issues, ranging from the presidential election to the planned House of Representatives inquiry into the government’s handling of the last Hajj pilgrimage.

The House inquiry was initiated by PKB Chairman and lawmaker Muhaimin Iskandar, raising suspicions that he is targeting Minister Yaqut, the younger brother of NU Chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf.

In response, NU leaders established a special committee to “revisit history,” alleging that the current PKB leadership has abandoned its NU roots.

Muhaimin has insisted that PKB is not exclusively the political arm of NU and that it dedicates resources to “further the interests of all Indonesian people.”

Under his leadership, PKB has emerged as the fourth-largest party in the House, winning more than 16 million votes in the last election. It is now the largest Muslim-based political party in Indonesia, following the February 14 election that saw another Islamic party, the United Development Party (PPP), eliminated from the House for the first time since its founding.

PKB was founded in July 1998 by Gus Dur, then NU chairman, a few months after Soeharto abruptly stepped down from the presidency amid nationwide protests against his authoritarian rule.

The new party provided an alternative voice for Muslims after the Islamic political movement was restricted to just one party, the PPP, during Soeharto’s 32-year presidency.

In its election debut in 1999, PKB won 51 seats in the House of Representatives, and the subsequent parliamentary voting selected Gus Dur as the country’s president.

PKB was in disarray after Gus Dur was impeached by the parliament in 2001 for “incompetence,” and he accused Matori Abdul Djalil, PKB’s first chairman, of disloyalty.

Internal rivalries for power and distrust among party executives have marred the party since then.

Muhaimin, with Gus Dur’s blessing, rose to leadership in 2005, trying to reunite PKB executives and regain support from voters, but he too was involved in conflict with the former president who accused him of betrayal.

Muhaimin refused to back down and retained his chairmanship by a Supreme Court ruling. He discharged Gus Dur’s daughter, Yenny Wahid, as PKB secretary-general before the 2009 election.

Muhaimin has been leading PKB for almost two decades now.

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