Hamzah ready to give up PPP chair

JAKARTA: Vice President Hamzah Haz said on Tuesday he had no ambition to retain the top post in the United Development Party (PPP) he currently chairs.

Addressing hundreds of party supporters at the opening of the party's national meeting here, he said he would support the process of democracy in selecting the party's leaders.

"I will not continue to lead PPP if it will kill democracy in the party," Hamzah said.

He also said the PPP, the country's third-largest political party, would hold a congress to elect new leaders in early 2003, not in 2004.

"It is impossible to hold a congress in 2004 as there is a lot on the national political agenda that year ... so the party's executive board believes (the congress) should be in 2003," he said.

The subject of the congress revealed internal rifts in the party, resulting in the founding of the breakaway party PPP Reformasi earlier this year. --Antara