Megawati installs R&D staff to support candidacy

JAKARTA (JP): Megawati Soekarnoputri has installed a number of prominent figures including Frans Seda in posts in her party's research and development center to prepare for her presidential candidacy.

Megawati, who chairs the popular PDI Perjuangan faction of the splintered Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), told her staff to "fight to the last drop of blood on the manifesto agreed to at the PDI Perjuangan congress in Bali last year."

During a ceremony at the center in Kemang, South Jakarta, on Monday, Megawati called on her supporters to strive for victory in the June 7 election to give her the authority to take steps to safeguard the existence of the party. This, she said, would give her a platform to fight for the presidency.

Frans Seda, who advises President B.J. Habibie's on economic matters and served as minister of finance under former president Soeharto, was named as an adviser. Other notable names drafted into the party machinery on Monday were that of senior PDI politician Sabam Sirait, scholar Mochtar Buchori, legal expert Dimyati Hartono, Maj. Gen. (ret) Theo Syafei and Hasyim Wahid, who is the younger brother of Nahdlatul Ulama chairman Abdurrahman Wahid.

Noted economist Kwik Kian Gie will chair the center. He will oversee 13 divisions staffed by 67 people, including former Golkar legislator Tjahyo Kumolo, who is now in charge of human resource development in the center.

In her speech, Megawati said that time was short and warned that staff would have to work hard to match the expectations raised at the Bali congress.

She urged the center to place issues of national interest such as solving the economic crisis ahead of party matters.

In his speech, Kwik said the center could not speak on behalf of the party.

"Official opinion can only be voiced by the party's central board," he said.

Kwik was named as the center's chairman in 1989. Five members of staff were appointed at the same time. Monday's ceremony formalized his appointment and officially brought the center into the party machinery. (01)