Golkar's Jakarta chapter to elect new chairman

JAKARTA (JP): Golkar's Jakarta chapter announced yesterday that it plans to hold a two-day regional congress next week to elect a new chairman for the 1998/2000 period, the chapter chairman said yesterday.

Serving chairman Tadjus Sobirin, who was included on a list of nine candidates for the new chairmanship, said the congress was scheduled to start on Aug. 28.

"I'm ready to contest the election with the other candidates," he added.

He will line up against Sugeng Suprijatna and Ade Surapriatna, both city council deputy speakers, former deputy governor for development affairs TB.M. Rais, deputy governor for administrative affairs Abdul Kahfi, head of the council's Armed Forces (ABRI) faction Sumekar K.W., ABRI faction member Dudi Sugiandi, Asmawi Manaf, a member of the executive board of the Golkar's Jakarta chapter, and Ahmadi, a former head of Golkar's Jakarta chapter.

The nomination of Kahfi, Sumekar and Dudi was strongly criticized by Golkar cadre Amir Hamzah on the grounds that all three were serving members of the Armed Forces.

Amir said that serving Armed Forces personnel were prohibited from leading Golkar which meant that if one of the trio was successful in the election then he would have to resign from the Armed Forces. "But I do not think there would enough time to process any such move and so they should be excluded from the list," he added.

Meanwhile, Golkar's factional head in the City Council, Fatommy Asaari, said yesterday that Golkar could only expect to gain about 25 percent of votes in the capital in next year's general election, a sharp drop from the 57 percent it recorded last year.

He added that even reaching this humble target would not be an easy task because Golkar's name had become closely linked with corruption, collusion and nepotism. He was speaking from a special event to mark the 53rd anniversary of Indonesian independence at Golkar's Jakarta chapter headquarters in Central Jakarta.

To mark yesterday's anniversary Golkar sold poor people 1,000 packages of food containing rice, cooking oil and sugar for Rp 7,500 each.

Fatommy said that Jakartans were now more critical of politicians because news of their illicit practices was now reported frequently and with impunity by the mass media.

"That's why it will be difficult to get votes in the election unless Golkar members work hard (to end these practices)," he said, refusing to identify those in his faction who are currently involved in malfeasance.

The capital had 7.45 million eligible voters in the 1997 election, 65 percent (4.45 million) of whom voted for Golkar. The United Development Party (PPP) came second with 32.3 percent (2.24 million) of the votes while the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) won the support of a mere 1.7 percent of the capital's electorate. (ind)