Govt to help PDI in House representation

JAKARTA (JP): Concerned by the Indonesian Democratic Party's (PDI) poor showing in last week's general election, the government decided yesterday to help the party.

"We are looking at ways to help PDI obtain an appropriate representation in the House of Representatives," Elections Supervision Committee Deputy Chairman Lt. Gen. Syarwan Hamid told reporters after a committee meeting yesterday.

Syarwan, who is also the Armed Forces chief for sociopolitical affairs, said there were ways to help the PDI increase its House membership. When asked whether there were rules for such action, he said that in the past elections, there had always been progress in the way problems were handled.

He said Golkar chairman Harmoko's recent offer to give PDI some of its votes should be considered as a way to help increase PDI's seats in the House.

PDI rejected the offer but Syarwan insisted that that was a misperception.

"I can understand how the PDI feels about its election achievement," he said.

Earlier this week, General Elections Committee Secretary- General Suryatna Subrata said that transferring votes to a defeated party could not be considered as there had not been any agreement on this before the election.

With ballot-counting nearing its end, it is clear that PDI has suffered a massive defeat, securing only 10 House seats for its 744 legislative candidates, while Golkar won 325 seats and the United Development Party (PPP) 90 seats. This is the worst ever performance by the Nationalist-Christian alliance, whose popularity peaked in 1992 when it won 56 seats.

The results mean that the party's government-backed chairman Soerjadi, who topped the PDI candidate list for Jakarta, and his secretary-general Buttu R. Hutapea, ranked third for North Sumatra, will have to quit the House in September.

Syarwan also expressed satisfaction over the poll turnout. The number of people who did not vote was relatively small, he said.

"It shows that people's political awareness remains high," he told reporters. "Most Indonesians want change through constitutional political means."

Chairman of the General Elections Institute Moch. Yogie S.M. denied the elections was unsuccessful as some people have charged.

"People thronged the polling booths to cast their votes. This shows that their trust in the three contestants is even higher than in previous elections," said Yogie, who is also minister of home affairs.

He said there was no reason for any political contestants to shun the remaining election stages.

There were 124,740,987 registered voters. Provisionally, 112,161,955 votes were counted by the general elections committee.

The final poll results will be sealed on June 23. The other two remaining election stages are the establishment of the legislative memberships, which is June 13 for the regional councils, June 17 for provincial councils and June 24 for the House of Representatives.

Asked about the request by PPP and PDI to have the election rerun, both Yogie and Syarwan said repeat voting could only be held at polling stations which experienced "problems" during the actual election.

Both PPP and PDI cried foul against the government as the election organizer. Syarwan said the government would soon respond to the complaints from the three political contestants.

"The election supervision committee will hold a meeting tomorrow (Friday) to discuss the contestants' protests," he said.

Singgih, the chairman of the Election Supervision Committee, denied yesterday the allegations that the body had discriminated against PPP and PDI.

"All the political contestants are represented on the Election Supervision Committee," he said. (imn)