Election institute faces lawsuit over dropped candidates<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The United Development Party (PPP) is planning
\nto sue the General Election Institute for rejecting its
\nlegislature candidates \"without clear grounds\".<\/p>\n
Secretary-General Tosari Wijaya said Tuesday that because of
\nsuspicion of foul play, the party executives were currently
\ngathering information on how the institute screened its
\ncandidates.<\/p>\n
\"We'll file a lawsuit against the General Election Institute
\nonce we have strong evidence of 'violations of procedures',\"
\nTosari said. He did not elaborate why the party executives became
\nsuspicious.<\/p>\n
Last Friday, during a General Election Institute meeting, the
\nNational Screening Committee's chairman, Sutoyo N.K., announced
\nthe committee had rejected 130 candidates from PPP, 21 candidates
\nfrom Golkar and 106 candidates from the Indonesian Democratic
\nParty. The number approved for the provisional list of
\nlegislature candidates was 2,293.<\/p>\n
Each political group submitted a maximum of 850 candidates for
\nnext year's election. The figure is twice the number of House of
\nRepresentatives seats up for grabs; the remaining 75 House seats
\nare reserved for the Armed Forces, whose members do not vote.<\/p>\n
Sutoyo cited the nominees' failure to meet the deadline for
\nvarious administrative matters as grounds for rejection, and
\nthat the public could file their objections against listed
\ncandidates with the institute.<\/p>\n
Sutoyo did not mention whether there were candidates who
\nfailed the screening procedures, which were to weed out those
\ncandidates with past communist links.<\/p>\n
Tosari, however, blasted the institute for what he said was
\n\"groundless rejection\" of the party's candidates. He pointed out
\nthat out of the 130 rejected nominees, 55 did not receive no-
\ncommunists-links statements from Bakorstanas, the internal
\nsecurity agency involved in the screening.<\/p>\n
\"The screening committee did not give us clear explanation as
\nto why our 55 candidates did not get the statements,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Tosari said he suspected that three of the candidates were
\nrejected because they were civil servants. Members of the Corps
\nof Civil Servants are tacitly expected to be loyal to the
\ndominant Golkar group.<\/p>\n
The three were Fauzi A.R. Fachruddin, a doctor at Yogyakarta
\nGeneral Hospital; Toha Abdurrahman, a lecturer from Sunan
\nKalijaga State Institute of Islamic Studies; and Jalaludin.<\/p>\n
\"We need as many selected candidates as possible to be our
\nvote-getters during the election campaign,\" he said.<\/p>\n
According to the time table established by the General
\nElection Committee, the election campaigning will start April 29
\nthrough May 23, 1997. A cooling-off period of seven days follows
\nbefore polling day, which is set for May 29, 1997. (imn)<\/p>",
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