Habibie pledge to stay until until the end of 1999

Habibie pledge to stay until until the end of 1999

JAKARTA (JP): In an apparent response to mounting demands from
students and opposition groups for his early resignation,
President B.J. Habibie said on Thursday that his Cabinet would
continue to serve the country until the end of next year.

He told executives of the Association of Indigenous Indonesian
Entrepreneurs (HIPPI) that he had no intention of reshuffling the
Cabinet. He also said his government would resign only after the
election of a new president and vice president in late 1999.

"He (Habibie) said the Cabinet would not be replaced until the
end of 1999," HIPPI Secretary-general Suryo Sulisto said after
meeting with Habibie at the Merdeka Palace.

After a meeting held on Tuesday at the residence of Nahdlatul
Ulama chairman Abdurrahman Wahid in Ciganjur, South Jakarta, the
country's top four reform leaders declared that the People's
Consultative Assembly should elect a new president and vice
president at the latest three months after the general election
next May.

The statement was endorsed by Abdurrahman himself, Yogyakarta
Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X., chairman of the National
Mandate Party (PAN) Amien Rais, and Megawati Soekaroputri, who
leads a popular faction of the splintered Indonesian Democratic
Party. Abdurrahman is better known as Gus Dur.

Reports of the meeting grabbed all the headlines in the
national newspapers, knocking the opening of the Special Session
of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) into relative
obscurity.

Students throughout the country continue to struggle against
Habibie's administration. They have called for the country to be
led temporarily by a reform council with the main task of
preparing for a general election next year.

"The rumor (of a reshuffle) is not true at all," Suryo quoted
Habibie as saying.

The President's spokeswoman, Dewi Fortuna Anwar, indicated on
Wednesday that Habibie was considering replacing his four
coordinating ministers in bid to make the Cabinet more efficient.

"It is quite possible," said Dewi on the sidelines of the MPR
session.

Support for the Ciganjur declaration continued to flood in on
Thursday.

Former student activist Rizal Ramli, who is an executive of
Econit consulting firm, described the four figures as the
country's de facto leaders.

The National Awakening Party (PKB) said on Thursday that it
wholeheartedly supported the declaration.

"We will follow it up with positive action," it said in a
statement.

The Council for the People's Mandate (MARA), whose members
include former minister Emil Salim and senior journalist Goenawan
Mohamad, on Thursday urged the MPR factions to meet with the four
reformists as a part of a campaign for national reconciliation.

"National reconciliation must be followed up by effective
measures to include groups not represented in the MPR," the
council said in a statement.

The National Labor Party proposed the establishment of an
independent reform council in which the four leaders would play a
key role.

The Indonesian People's Sovereignty Council even went as far
as to call on the four leaders to set up a transitional
government.

Members of the MPR praised the declaration but not one of the
five factions expressed any interest in meeting with the four
figures.

Meanwhile, Abdurrahman expressed the four leader's readiness
to meet with the MPR factions if they wanted to talk to them
before the end of the Special Session on Friday.

"I am ready to meet with the MPR factions. I hope it can be
arranged," Abdurrahman said after meeting with Rizal Ramli at his
Ciganjur residence on Thursday. (prb)