Golkar getting rather hairy

JAKARTA (JP): If you decide to trim your facial hair these days, make sure you shave it in the form of banyan tree or a figure two.

That was Golkar chief Harmoko's advise to supporters of Golkar, the symbol of which is a banyan tree and whose ballot paper number is two.

Apparently apprehensive about this month's election, Harmoko made fun of J. Osdar, a Kompas daily reporter, he found without his usual beard.

"Why did you shave it off?" he asked the reporter who he approached in apparent seriousness. "You should have let me know before you did it."

Before the bewildered reporter had time to reply, the Golkar boss continued, "You should have shaved the hair to form a banyan tree or a figure two." (06)