The looming power struggle between president Yudhoyono and vice president Jusuf Kalla.

Previously touched on here in this comment the apparent rivalry between President Susilio Bambang Yudhoyono and his deputy is occupying the attention of Bill Guerin in an Asia Times piece.

Guerin writes of Kalla’s dynamism in dealing with the aftermath of the recent Yogyakarta earthquake noting that the issuance of by Kalla of avice-presidential decree appeared to have seen Kalla’s enthusiasm go outside the constitutional framework in terms of its results.

Considered to be Indonesia’s most powerful vice-president ever Kalla had previously financed the election campaign of his superior and Guerin suggests that this gives him undue influence now in the government and may have led him to becoming an extremely important factor in the shape of policy decisions today.

Kalla is from the Golkar party, which emerged as the “winner” of the 2004 elections with 21.5% of the vote enabling it to hold 127 of the seats in the DPR. This fact gives Golkar at least the authority to dominate the parliament in sharp contrast to the weak position of Yudhoyono’s own Democratic Party with only 56 seats.

Now more and more voices are being heard that claim that Kalla is in the process of building on these aforementioned strengths to put himself, and his party, in a strong position to challenge Yudhoyono in the next national elections in 2009.

Read the full article.