Meeting between governor and parties halted

JAKARTA (JP): A meeting between the governor and the chairmen of the city chapters of two political parties and Golkar was canceled due to the absence of the United Development Party (PPP) chairman, Rusjdi Hamka.

The three political forces' were to discuss their request for the number of seats in City Council to be increased to 100.

City Council has 75 seats, 15 for Armed Forces (ABRI) faction, and 60 divided among the PPP, Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) and Golkar faction.

Golkar has 31 council seats, the PPP 15 and PDI 14.

Only Tadjus Sobirin, chairman of city's Golkar chapter and Lukman S. Mokoginta, chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) chapter were present.

"The meeting was postponed because Rusjdi didn't show up.... maybe because of poor communication," Tadjus Sobirin said.

He said he was only told about the meeting the day before.

Rusjdi, who was contacted at his home yesterday, said: "I didn't know about the meeting at all... my handphone was not working. I was at the Ministry of Religious Affairs all day."

"No one even told me about it (the meeting) during the announcement of the final nomination lists on Thursday," Rusjdi said.

The city's Election Committee announced the final nomination list of 353 candidates. In the May 29 general election they will fight for 60 of the 75 City Council seats. Fifteen seats are reserved for members of the Armed Forces who do not vote.

The meeting is essential to the passage of the proposal because in order to reach the home affairs ministry for action it must by forwarded by the governor.

Lukman said they wanted more councilors because Jakarta did not have a district level council like other provinces.

"Currently, the city's population is more than 9.8 million, up from 7.6 million in 1992. This increase makes it necessary to increase the number of council members," he said.

He said the additional councilors would not burden the city's budget, which was now set at more than Rp 3.2 trillion (US$1.3 billion).

"More councilors will help the city to prepare to become equal with other big cities in other countries," Lukman said. (ste)