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)