'Keep your candidates to yourselves'
'Keep your candidates to yourselves'
JAKARTA (JP): Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman said yesterday that the current debate about who will be Indonesia's president after 1998 should refrain from mentioning names.
If people start naming names, it could create disturbances, Soesilo said yesterday, as quoted by Antara.
"This is not the time to name any candidate. Just keep it in your heart and pray. Let's not have a row over this," he was quoted by the news agency as saying.
"One of the bad habits of Eastern people is that, if we name a candidate, we start looking at his bad side or digging up dirt," he said.
"This person is okay, but there's something wrong with the way he smiles," he said, citing an example of the habit of picking on others regarding even the smallest details.
For the time being, everyone should refrain from debating whether the candidate should be tall or short, dark or fair- skinned, male or female, a civilian or someone from the military, he added.
He made the remarks off the cuff while addressing a seminar at his office on the government's plan to launch a campaign to tighten national discipline next week.
Soesilo is the latest government official to try to dampen the succession debate, which was reopened early this month by Chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council Sudomo. The latter said that he knew for a fact that President Soeharto would like to see a civilian, rather than someone with a military background, become the next vice president.
Sudomo's statement sparked controversy because it implied that Soeharto, now 73 years old, would run again when his current term in office ends in 1998 and that the incumbent would be reelected.
Soeharto has not made his intentions known to the public.
Rather than focusing on the future vice president, the debate has shifted to the question of whether or not Indonesia will see a change of president in 1998.
No one has so far ventured to name a candidate for the presidential post, but there has been no shortage of suggested candidates for vice president, ranging from Harmoko, the chairman of the ruling political group Golkar to Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, Soeharto's eldest daughter and a rising figure in politics and business.
Harmoko has dismissed the controversy about the presidential succession as "unethical" given that the incumbent is still serving the nation.
Soeharto is Indonesia's second president since the country gained independence in 1945. A career soldier, he replaced Sukarno in 1967 as acting president and was elected the following year.
He has since been reelected by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) five times, running unopposed.
Soesilo said yesterday that there was no need to groom the next leader at this early stage.
"When the time comes, he (the candidate) will come forward and will be duly elected. There is no need to make various scenarios," he said. "Let the MPR elect the president. We don't need to name the candidate now," he added.
Meanwhile, State Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie, rumored as a possible presidential candidate, also dismissed yesterday the succession debate as premature, Antara reported.
"Let's not talk about the succession now. The mechanism (for presidential election) is there. Let's leave it to the MPR," he told reporters in Surabaya during a working visit.
Asked by reporters if he would be ready if the MPR nominated him for the top job, he asked: "Ready for what?" (emb)