General election must be successful: Soesilo

JAKARTA (JP): The government has challenged the public to help make the May 29 general election a success.

"It'd be awful for such a religious, civilized nation like Indonesia if its people are unable to make the five-yearly general election secure, smooth and successful," said Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman.

He also called on the community to help prevent unrest and avoid clashes among supporters of the three political parties.

"Only several days to go before the election campaign starts, and (a month) before polling day, and yet we still hear of minor clashes among supporters of political organizations," he said after chairing a limited ministerial meeting on politics and security.

Soesilo was referring to the recent clashes among supporters of the United Development Party (PPP), Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), in several Central Java towns.

He said that, though only minor incidents, the clashes had disrupted relations among supporters of the political groups.

Soesilo did not rule out the possibility that the clashes were rigged by "a third party" seeking to foil the general election.

The election campaign will begin Sunday. Polling day will fall on May 29.

Moslem scholar Amien Rais said Indonesia needs to be wary of certain parties, both local and from overseas, seeking to disrupt the general election.

"We need to be aware. Judging from various riots and social unrest recently (we can see that) there are groups employing certain tricks to disrupt, even foil, the election," Amien said after a routine discussion at the Tamansiswa campus in Yogyakarta, Wednesday.

Amien, whose opinion on both local and foreign politics is often sought, said he could not predict the situation leading up to the election.

"I'm just hoping that all parties will exercise self- restraint, because our people have suffered enough from unrest recently," he said.

"Don't let us add to it by burning or damaging houses of worship. That's not what our religions tell us to do. We all have to learn from the unrest," he said.

He said every group in the community should "turn over a new leaf".

"I believe the government has started to take some concrete steps. For instance, it just held the first cabinet meeting on poverty alleviation. Let's hope that it will bring results for us all."

Amien was one of the first scholars to attribute the outburst of violence over the past year to the poor distribution of wealth and access to resources. He said people are already frustrated because of the dire poverty and can be easily ignited like "dry wood".

President Soeharto chaired the first cabinet meeting on poverty alleviation Tuesday and decided to hold it every three months.

Security

Soesilo also said yesterday the Armed Forces would not provide exclusive security protection for any of the political groups.

"They will have equal treatment," he said. "We won't give (PDI chairman) Soerjadi exclusive security protection in his campaign activities."

The recognized-board of PDI had expressed concern that its campaign activities might be disrupted by supporters of Soerjadi's rival, ousted PDI chief Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Soerjadi had to cancel a number of meetings in several Java cities due to strong opposition from Megawati supporters. In some cases, mobs even tried to attack him.

Megawati, elected in a party extraordinary congress in Surabaya in 1993, was removed from her seat in a government- backed congress in June, last year. The congress then appointed Soerjadi to replace the late president Sukarno's eldest daughter. (imn/23/swe)