Golkar keeps 30 percent of old faces

Golkar keeps 30 percent of old faces

MAKASSAR: Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung admitted on Tuesday
that 40 percent of the party's candidates for the House of
Representatives were old faces.

Besides the old faces, Akbar, who has been convicted on
corruption charges and sentenced to three years in jail, also
claimed that 30 percent of the party's candidates would be women.

He said that Golkar, which was once used as the political
vehicle of former authoritarian president Soeharto, was targeting
40 percent of the seats in the House and 30 percent in provincial
legislative councils.

In the last general election in 1999, Golkar, which was then
still dominated by relics of the Soeharto regime, managed to
secure 120 House seats, or 20 percent of the total number of
seats in the House.

As in the past, Akbar said Golkar would still ask people with
military backgrounds and local celebrities to join the party.
-- JP