Bickering arises over candidates for PBSI top job

Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta

While having succeeded in forcing Chairul Tanjung to resign his chairmanship of the country's badminton governing body, the PBSI, which is expected to officially take place on Saturday, the five members of the working group charged with finding a new chairman look to have started bickering among themselves over who will replace Chairul.

Chairul was forced to relinquish his post as chairman of the PBSI after being found incompetent.

The PBSI will hold an extraordinary meeting on Saturday to find a replacement for Chairul.

However, things appear to be getting heated in the run-up to the meeting.

The problems have arisen following the nomination of media tycoon Dahlan Iskan by the East Java chapter, whose chairman Yacob Rusdianto is a member of the working group.

The other four members are Icuk Sugiarto (Jakarta), Johannes IW (North Sumatra), Koesdarto Pramono (Central Java) and Mustafa Djide (South Sulawesi).

Dahlan's nomination was announced on Saturday, a move that appeared to irritate Icuk, who has thrown his weight behind Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso.

The 1983 world champion said on Monday he had been betrayed by the other members, whom he claimed had agreed on Sutiyoso as the sole candidate for the post.

"When we met Pak Try Sutrisno last week, he said that Sutiyoso was the perfect man for the job," Icuk said.

Try Sutrisno, a former PBSI chairman from 1985 to 1993, is acting as a mediator in PBSI's pursuit of a replacement for Chairul.

"I didn't expect that the working group would add to the list of candidates. I only heard that East Java would submit Yacob as the candidate. All of a sudden, the chapter announced Pak Dahlan Iskan as the candidate instead," Icuk said.

"We have agreed that we should nominate a candidate who is of better quality than the previous chairman, or at least is no worse than him," he said, adding that Sutiyoso had received pledges of support from around 20 provincial chapters.

Meanwhile, Yacob Rusdianto and Johannes IW held a separate press conference on Monday to contradict Icuk's statement.

"Who says we only have to submit the name of one candidate at the extraordinary meeting?

"If the working group were only to submit one name to the meeting because that was the only person who was capable of serving as PBSI chairman, then that would be good ..., but if there is more than one person who is up to the task, why don't we accommodate this?" Johannes said.

He said that it would be better to have more than one candidate as people would have options about who they thought was best suited for the job.