'Military and civilians have equal chance at presidency'

JAKARTA (JP): Recent calls to give civilians and military personnel an equal opportunity to be nominated as presidential candidates were supported by a minister and a former vice president yesterday.

Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman and former vice president Sudharmono agreed yesterday that there were no laws barring civilians from becoming presidential candidates.

"Civilians and Armed Forces members have an equal right to be nominated in the presidential election," Soesilo said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters after briefing the provincial chiefs of the Coordinating Agency for the Pancasila Course, Soesilo said civil and military candidates could be nominated as long as they were "acceptable".

Soesilo said that many public figures could meet the "acceptable and capable" criterion: "There are about 200 million Indonesians, is (the presidential nomination) so difficult that we cannot choose from among them?"

The discourse on whether civilians could become president began recently with a statement from State Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie. He said the next president did not have to come from the military. Indonesia's two presidents, the late Sukarno and the incumbent President Soeharto, were both military leaders.

Habibie told the Forum Keadilan bi-weekly that people should not see civilians and the military in such a polarized way.

"The next president does not necessarily have come from the Armed Forces (ABRI)," he said, pointing out that the military was a minority group in the country.

The Indonesian Armed Forces has 500,000 personnel, while the country's population is approaching 200 million.

Separately, Sudharmono said the 1945 Constitution did not discriminate presidential candidates: "The 1945 Constitution only says that a candidate has to be an Indonesian."

He said the power to decide whether to choose a civilian or someone from the Armed Forces for the position rested with the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

The 1,000 member Assembly will convene in 1998 to elect a president, to adopt the 1998-2003 Guidelines for State Policies and to review laws proposed by political groupings. The Assembly is dominated by politicians affiliated to the ruling Golkar.

Sudharmono said he new of eligible civilian candidates for the presidency, but refused name them.

Political scholar Harun Al Rasyid said earlier that it was time for civilians to take the country's helm.

"We are no longer in a state of emergency which requires a military leader to run the country. It is time for a civilian," he was quoted by Merdeka daily as saying.

Quoting Article 10 of the 1945 Constitution, Harun said the presidential post should not only be held by members of the four military services.

"It will be unfair if the president is elected from only one of the military forces," he said. "A civilian is more appropriate for the position."

Article 10 of the 1945 Constitution stipulates that the president controls the four military forces -- the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Police.

The issue of the presidential succession was first raised by Chairman of the Muhammadiyah Reformist Moslem Organization Amien Rais in December 1993, only months after the Assembly reelected President Soeharto to his sixth consecutive term.

Discussion of the issue, a long-time political taboo, immediately snowballed, sparking controversy. Some people supported Amien's ideas, while others, including Golkar chairman Harmoko, condemned his ideas as "premature" and "unethical."

President Soeharto, 75, himself responded to the clamor by stating last year that he had no intention of becoming "president for life".

The President said in May, before a group of visiting Australian senior editors, that he had never sought reelection and that it was the prerogative of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) to select a national leader.

Soeharto has been at the country's helm since 1967. He was reelected in March 1993 for his sixth consecutive term by a vote of acclamation by the Assembly. He was the sole candidate in the election, as he was in 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1988. (imn)