Indonesia drops Asiad bid and backs Malaysia

Indonesia drops Asiad bid and backs Malaysia

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia has decided to withdraw its bid for
hosting the 2006 Asian Games and instead throw its weight behind
neighboring country Malaysia.

The National Sports Council (KONI) vice chairman, Arie Sudewo,
announced on Tuesday that President B.J. Habibie through Agung
Laksono, who just resigned from his post as state minister of
youth affairs and sports, had decided that Indonesia would
support Malaysia's bid.

"In the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) spirit,
we will come as one voice, which is to support Malaysia. But we
will still meet officials from Malaysia to discuss some technical
problems to make the bid successful," Arie said.

Agung told Media Indonesia that Indonesia's reason for
supporting Malaysia was because the neighboring country supported
Indonesia in international diplomacy, especially concerning
Indonesia's worsening diplomatic ties with Australia.

Agung, KONI chairman Wismoyo Arismunandar and KONI officials
are scheduled to meet Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad
soon.

KONI insists Indonesia will still compete against Malaysia and
candidate countries India, Syria, Qatar, Hong Kong and Uzbekistan
in the Games.

Malaysia started promoting it bid after the 1998 Asian Games
in Bangkok and continued at the 1999 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games
in Brunei Darussalam. It plans to push forward its bid at the
2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

Arie said KONI received a questionnaire on how many sports
should feature at the quadrennial event in 2006.

"Malaysia plans to feature 38 sports but we may include some
sports including pencak silat, wrestling and body building where
our athletes have chances of winning gold medals," he said.

"We have discussed, in an internal meeting, lobbying Asiad
participating countries to approve the inclusion of pencak silat
in the 2002 Asiad in Pusan, South Korea."

Arie said that despite the funds already spent by KONI on
promoting its bid, it felt the money was not wasted.

"We estimated that we would spend some money to start our bid
promotion, but it is nothing compared to the US$10,000 cash we
would have to pay to the Olympics Council of Asia if we were
elected to host the Asiad," he said.

KONI has spent Rp 60 million (US$7,845) of the Rp 300 million
provided for promotion, compared to Malaysia which is prepared to
spend $2.2 million for the bid alone.

Arie said the new government would most likely respect the
decision made by the current government.

"I don't think the new government will change the decision of
withdrawing from the bid. It's fixed."

Compared to Malaysia -- which utilized the National Sports
Complex for the 1998 Commonwealth Games and will use again for
the 2001 SEA Games -- Indonesia intended to renovate the Senayan
Sports Complex, which served as the venue for the fourth Asiad in
1962.

KONI also seemed unsure of collecting funds to finance the
Asiad if Indonesia was elected as host, as the government had yet
to pledge financial support. (yan)