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)