Jakarta  - An Indonesian minister and business tycoon has been elected the new chairman of the Golkar Party, once the most powerful political force in the country, paving the way for an alliance with the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration.

Aburizal Bakrie, minister of people's welfare, was elected the new Golkar chairman at the party's national congress that ended early Thursday in Pekanbaru, the provincial capital of Riau, eastern Sumatra.

Bakrie won more than 50 per cent of the vote, beating media magnate Surya Paloh and two other contenders - Yuddy Chrisnandi, a younger, reform-minded Golkar member, and late president Suharto's son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, the state-run Antara news agency reported.

Golkar was the political machine used by Suharto's dictatorship to rule the country with an iron fist for more than three decades before his downfall in 1998.

The election of Bakrie, whose family controls coal mines, plantations, property and telecom businesses, as Golkar's chairman for the next five years paves the way for the party's alliance with Yudhoyono's next government.

Prior to the Golkar's national congress, Bakrie pledged to maintain ties with Yudhoyono, who won by a landslide in the July presidential election.

Bakrie told reporters he would announce the lineup of the party's central board of executives before the end of its national congress on Thursday evening. (dpa)