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