Govt forming team a select parties

JAKARTA (JP): The government is setting up a team of 11 people to select political parties eligible to contest the June 7 general election.

Minister of Home Affairs Syarwan Hamid said the team would be independent and its members, which were to be announced in the near future, would carry out the tasks of a planned national elections committee, as stipulated in the newly endorsed draft law on the general election process.

"The team will be established because the national election committee has yet to be set up. It (the committee) cannot be established now because it should be made up of representatives of political parties eligible to contest the elections," he said here on Thursday.

Syarwan declined to identify the team's members. But he said their identities had been exposed prematurely by a number of newspapers.

The Merdeka daily reported recently the team comprised: Muslim scholar Nurcholish Madjid, noted lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution, political scientists Andi M. Mallarangeng, Afan Gaffar, Eep Saefullah and Miriam Budiardjo, former Supreme Court justice Adi Andojo, rights activist Mulyana W. Kusumah, student activists Rama Pratama and Anas Urbaningrum, and Ryaas Rasyid, the director-general of public administration and regional autonomy at the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Nurcholish, who has reportedly been appointed leader of the team, said members were to hold a meeting next Wednesday to discuss the selection process for political parties.

He said the existing political parties -- currently more than 200 as new parties have kept sprouting following Soeharto's resignation from presidency last May -- were all legal at this time, but there was no guarantee they would all be eligible to contest the elections.

He said his team would make a field tour to provinces and regencies to check on the networks of existing parties.

"For example, we will check party chapters in provinces and regencies as stipulated by the bill on the general election," he said.

The new general election law requires political parties to have chapters in at least nine provinces, and branches in 50 percent of regencies to be eligible to contest the general election.

New parties hailed the establishment of the independent team which they said reflected political realities.

Ridwan Saidi, chairman of the New Masyumi Party, said the independent team's presence was the best way to ensure a smooth transition process from the government-run General Election Institute (LPU) to the National Election Committee (KPU).

"Of the most importance is that the team should develop good communication with all political parties," he said.

Muchtar Pakpahan, chairman of the National Labor Party, expressed optimism the team would be able to work independently because all its members were credible and acceptable to political parties.

"The team members, especially Nurcholish, Buyung, and many others, have been popularly known and they will be able to carry out their mission successfully," he said. (rms)