Jakarta to hold Miss Indonesia contest
Jakarta to hold Miss Indonesia contest
JAKARTA (JP): After a four year gap, the Miss Indonesia beauty
contest is being held this week and is expected to be attended by
the newly elected Miss Universe 2000, Lara Dutta, the organizers
said.
Chairwoman of the Miss Indonesia Foundation Mooryati Soedibyo
said last week the fifth contest would be participated in by 30
women from 25 of the country's 26 provinces.
Maluku and North Maluku provinces will be represented by one
contestant, while capital Jakarta will be represented by five
delegates, one from each of the city's five mayoralties, in the
June 7 to June 10 contest.
"The contestants will be judged based on their intellectual
ability, behavior and beauty," Mooryati, a businesswoman who runs
a cosmetics company, said.
She said the grand final of the beauty contest would be held
next Saturday at the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) and be
attended by some 1,000 people.
Beauty contests were banned by the government of former
president Soeharto on the grounds that they treated women as
objects and were against religious and eastern values in general.
State Minister for Women's Empowerment Khofifah Indar
Parawansa, who attended the meeting, said the government
supported the event. She underlined, however, that contests such
as these should view women an asset, not a commodity to be
exploited, as was stipulated in a 1984 education and culture
decree on beauty contests.
The decree states that contests should not be based upon
participants' beauty and body measurements.
"So, whoever wins the contest will be one of the country's
assets and not merely a tourist commodity," Khofifah said.
She said the urine of each candidate would be checked to make
sure that she was not a drug user.
Minister for Tourism and the Arts Hidayat Jaelani, also at the
media briefing, said he hoped the event would help restore the
country's image, which had been badly tarnished by social unrest
and political uncertainty.
Data from his office shows that the number of foreign tourists
visiting the country in the first four months of this year
totaled 1.3 million people, compared to 1.24 million over the
same period last year.
"Hopefully, the event will help us to boost our tourism
sector," Hidayat said, adding that the winner of Miss Indonesia
would represent the country as a tourist ambassador at
international events.
Mooryati said Miss Universe 2000 from India would arrive in
Jakarta on Wednesday.
During her 10-day visit to Indonesia, Dutta would visit
Borobudur temple in Yogyakarta and several other places in
Surabaya and Bali. (06)