Around 100 members of the Golkar Party Youth Generation, clad in military-style camouflage uniforms, stood guard in the hall of the Merica Room, Peninsula Hotel, Jakarta. Last Friday, they closely guarded an important meeting: a consultation assembly between the central and provincial leaders of Golkar.

The agenda was none other than to anticipate the guilty verdict that the council had just pronounced on Akbar Tandjung, the party’s chai