Mbak Tutut is favored to chair volleyball body

Mbak Tutut is favored to chair volleyball body

JAKARTA (JP): Siti Hardijanti Rukmana, President Soeharto's eldest daughter, looks every inch the new chairperson of the Indonesian Volleyball Association, five days before the balloting.

If elected in the final day of the association's congress in Sentul, West Java on Tuesday, Mrs. Rukmana, popularly known as her Mbak Tutut, will end the association's tradition of having a chairperson from the National Police.

For at least the last two decades, the association's chairmen have always been the Chief of the National Police.

Parallel to this pattern, all but four of the association's 27 provincial chapters are led by chiefs of provincial polices.

Thus, if this tradition is to be kept, National Police Chief Gen. Banurusman must be the association's next chairman.

But the present chairman of the association, Gen. Pol. (ret) Kunarto, proposed the break with tradition as he announced his unwillingness to be re-elected September last year.

According to Kunarto, change of guards among the chiefs of the provincial police happened quite often, and this disrupted their functions to improve volleyball development in their respective provinces.

Kunarto has even asked all the provincial representatives to support the election of Mbak Tutut as new leader.

Moh. Solli, the association's secretary-general, quoted Kunarto as saying that Mbak Tutut was ready to take his mantle.

Solli said Mbak Tutut was the right person to chair the association for several reasons. First, she can provide strong financial backup to the association.

Second, she is good at mobilizing and organizing youths which she proved at the National Youth March in July last year. The march was attended by youths from Portugal, whose diplomatic ties with Indonesia have been frozen since the integration of East Timor in 1976.

Third, she is no stranger to the game. She is the patron of the Indonesian Beach Volleyball Association. (arf)