Megawati inaugurates PDI Perjuangan's new office

Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

President Megawati Soekarnoputri inaugurated the new office of her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) in South Jakarta in an elaborate ceremony on Sunday evening.

The ornate celebration included an all-night traditional Javanese show staged by one of the most popular puppeteers in the country, Ki Manteb Sudarsono, after Megawati cut a rice con to officiate the new building.

The event was open to the public, and food and drinks were provided for all.

By Monday, the party's headquarters will be moved to its newly renovated, 2,000-square-meter office at Jl. Lenteng Agung Raya No. 99, South Jakarta, from its temporary Pecenongan office in Central Jakarta.

The party's treasurer, Noviantika Nasution, said that the renovation, which took about a year, cost Rp 600 million.

"Before, the building was more like a house, and was too small to accommodate all of PDI Perjuangan's needs. The two-story building we have today looks more like an office," she said.

As rent for the Pecenongan office will not be due until August, Noviantika said, some of the party's activities will still be held there, until the new contract is completed.

"We will still utilize the building for some things, instead of having to rent function rooms at hotels," she added.

PDI Perjuangan decided to move to the Lenteng Agung office after a bloody attack by members of its rival, government-backed group on its headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta, on July 27, 1996.

The takeover, which prompted massive riot in the capital's streets, claimed the lives of 47 people, while the government only acknowledged two casualties.

The Diponegoro office, located next to the already renovated office of Vice President Hamzah Haz's United Development Party, is still closed to public, pending the trial of the 1996 incident.

In late 2000, the party rented the Pecenongan office in Central Jakarta for practical purposes.

PDI Perjuangan, however, has yet to decide which office will be used as its permanent office in the future.

"We are still debating whether or not to continue to use the Diponegoro office in the future, or to use it only as the party's monument," the party's deputy secretary-general, Pramono Anung, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Pramono said that the Lenteng Agung office is owned by an individual, but declined to release the person's name; Noviantika, meanwhile, said that the land and the building are fully owned by PDI Perjuangan.

But "the building and land at Diponegoro, by law, belongs to the party," Pramono said.