Fresh call for govt to drop Soerjadi

JAKARTA (JP): Supporters of Megawati Soekarnoputri asked the government yesterday to dissolve the Indonesian Democratic Party's (PDI) leadership under Soerjadi after the party's poor showing in last month's general election.

A statement signed by the leaders of 13 PDI provincial branches loyal to the ousted party chairwoman, Megawati, said the party's paltry result in May 29 election was the latest evidence that the Soerjadi faction was illegitimate because it did not have majority support.

"The poll served as a covert referendum which, on the one hand, rejected the Soerjadi faction and, on the other hand, confirmed popular support for Megawati," the Jakarta chapter's chief, Roy Janis, told four House of Representatives PDI legislators yesterday.

The statement was signed by Janis and his counterparts from West Java, Central Java, East Java, Yogyakarta, Bali, South Sumatra, Riau, Lampung, West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and East Kalimantan.

PDI has managed to secure only 10 House seats ahead of next Tuesday's announcement of final poll results by the General Elections Committee. The party recorded its best election results five years ago with 56 seats in the House.

Around 50 Megawati supporters from Jakarta went to the House yesterday to deliver a second petition that Soerjadi's faction be disqualified. Thousands of Megawati supporters rallied in front of the House two months ago over the same demand.

Soetardjo Soerjogoeritno, I Gusti Ngurah Sara, Sukowaluyo and Marcel Beding, four of 17 House legislators loyal to Megawati, received the petitioners after leaders of the House failed to meet them.

The statement urged the election organizers not to endorse the PDI's results because it had not represented the party's majority, whose political rights had been denied.

The government let Soerjadi's faction of the party, instead of Megawati's, contest the polls. Soerjadi had been reinstated as the party chairman following a government-backed congress that toppled Megawati in Medan, North Sumatra, in June last year.

"Arrogance, ignorance of the rule of law and the use of force imposed on us during election stages have caused a dilemma for our Pancasila democracy," the statement said.

Sukowaluyo responded to the statement by saying that the party had lost about 1,200 of the seats in the House and provincial and local legislative councils that it had won five years ago.

"The 'coup' for the party's leadership last year proved off target. Instead, it has disrupted our Pancasila democracy and sacrificed the PDI, which is a national asset," Sukowaluyo said.

PDI under-representation looks set to force an adjustment in the House's decision-making process. The House's rules say that each session and decision must have a quorum and include representatives of all three parties and the Armed Forces. This means that a person from each of the parties and the Armed Forces must sit on each of the House's 11 commissions.

"What kind of Pancasila democracy will there be if a decision is made in the absence of one faction," Sukowaluyo said.

Sukowaluyo suggested that all parties involved in the breakaway congress in Medan reflect after the "counterproductive rigging" of the election and refrain from other maneuvers.

He told the provincial chapters to continue their quest for legal settlement against the government's decision to recognize Soerjadi's faction at their expense.

After a year of grueling arguments, the Bekasi, West Java, Pekanbaru and Riau district courts ruled in favor of Megawati supporters.

Janis said that Megawati's Jakarta chapter would protest if the PDI won more votes than it already had. The PDI has not secured a House seat from its Jakarta constituency as ballot counting nears completion. (amd)