Government approves PDI's rival congress

JAKARTA (JP): After repeated statements of a hands-off policy in connection with leadership wrangling in the minority Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), the government yesterday endorsed a request from the party's rival board for permission to hold a fresh chairmanship election.

"The majority of the party's members have requested permission to convene a congress. The government should not reject the majority's request," Home Affairs Ministry Director General of Sociopolitics Sutoyo N.K. told reporters after receiving a delegation of some activists of the rival board yesterday.

"Since the beginning, the government has observed that PDI is still absorbed in internal problems," he said. "The government would accept any offer to solve the problems, as long as they are in line with the party's constitution and statutes."

Some 40 PDI members came to the Ministry of Home Affairs yesterday, proposing a congress to solve rifts in the party.

"The last national meeting left some unfinished business that is disturbing the party's activities," said Buttu Hutapea, the spokesperson of the North Sumatra chapter of PDI.

The meeting he referred to was the disputed extraordinary congress in Surabaya, East Java, in December 1993. At the congress, Megawati won the majority of votes of the party's regional branches. The result was legalized in a national "deliberation" meeting in January 1994.

Among the unfinished business that Buttu mentioned was the failure of the current central executive board to establish the Central Supervisory Board and Party's Supervisory Council. The central board also failed to solve the leadership rift in the East Java chapter, he said.

"The solutions can only be achieved through a congress," Buttu said, adding that most of the chapters supported the call for a convening of the congress.

The group claimed yesterday they were representing 21 of 27 provincial chapters and 215 of 305 branches of PDI.

Secretary-general Alexander Litaay of Megawati's board yesterday criticized the government's decision. "It's not helping PDI resolve its problems. The government shouldn't have made such a hasty decision," he said.

"The government should have checked whether those people represented the majority of PDI's members," he said.

The government has repeatedly stated that it supported Megawati as the only legitimate leader of the party.

Separately, PDI's Deputy House Speaker, Soerjadi, said he supported the proposal and added that Megawati should also agree with it.

Soerjadi, whom Megawati defeated in the party's 1993 election, said there has not been any congress held to legalize the results of 1993's national meeting. According to the statutes, decisions taken in the meeting should be approved by a national-scale congress first, he pointed out.

"Megawati's board has no right to claim itself as the sanctioned board with a five-year tenure," he added. (01/imn)