Kupang gets new Golkar regent

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara: The pair of Ibrahim A. Medah and Ruben Funay were elected on Monday as the new regent of Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, and deputy regent respectively, for the 2004- 2009 term.

The winners, who were nominated by the Golkar Party, won 31 of the 40 votes in the Kupang legislative council, defeating their rivals from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), Libert S. Foenay and Paul Nyoko.

The PDI-P pair received only four votes, while the other contenders, Semuel Dima and Andereas Klomanghitis, who were supported by the coalition faction, took five votes.

The election was tightly guarded as an anonymous bomb threat had been made a few days before.

The tight security prompted thousands of supporters of rival candidates to cancel their plans for major rallies on the evening of the election.

The newly elected regent has been questioned as a witness in at least three graft cases involving billions of rupiah in Kupang, which remained unsolved to date. -- JP