Leadership dispute rocks retail group

Three top executives of the Indonesian Retailers Association said yesterday that the re-election of J.A. Sinungan as the organization's chairman is illegal.

Sinungan, who is a commissioner of PT Inti Fashindo International retail outlets and chairman of the group for over a decade, was re-elected to the post during the organization's congress earlier this month.

Hari Darmawan, the president of Matahari chain stores, as well as Suryadharma Ali and Anton Lukmanto, both from the Hero chain of supermarkets, said that Sinungan was elected in contravention of the organization's statutes, which prohibits the repeated re- election of its top executives.

They said that a number of prominent retailers, who were involved in the congress, supported the move to unseat Sinungan. (09)