JAKARTA, Indonesia – Former President Megawati Sukarnoputri this week delivered an unveiled message to President Joko Widodo: You’re a product of the party, and you remain at its service.

That suggestion, delivered during a political party speech with Mr. Widodo in attendance, reflects the power the former president still wields in national politics, and the strained ties she has with the new president, political analysts said. It might also forecast growing pressure on Mr. Widodo from the party to placate Ms. Sukarnoputri – one of his most important political sponsors – in the months to come, they added.

Ms. Sukarnoputri, chairwoman of the country’s largest party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), invoked the Constitution in laying claims to Mr. Widodo’s agenda during a national congress in Bali on Thursday. During the meeting she was re-elected chairwoman of the party she founded for the fourth straight time, for a term of five years.

Indonesia’s system of democracy “regulates that the president and vice president naturally enforce a political party’s policy line,” she said. “That’s the constitutional mechanism that we know.”

Ms. Sukarnoputri didn’t describe the price to pay for not toeing the party line, but hinted at her own battle scars after a lifetime in the political area. Before a room of party members she spoke of “many betrayals,” saying “multiple times I was stabbed in the back” because of “political ambitions for power.”