More supporters nominate Megawati for president
More supporters nominate Megawati for president
JAKARTA (JP): Activists of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) are ripening their plan to push party chief Megawati Soekarnoputri into the 1998 race for the presidency.
In the latest development, three senior PDI members of the House of Representatives, Aberson Marle Sihaloho, Marwan Adam and S.G.B. Tampubolon, have announced their support for her.
"We have signed a statement and submitted it to our branch offices in the regencies. We are serious," Aberson told The Jakarta Post.
Megawati, who celebrated her 49th birthday with relatives, close friends and journalists at her mansion in South Jakarta last night, declined to comment on the party members' move.
"Please, no interviews today. I just want to relax," she grinned when journalists asked her for comments.
The first to propose that the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) should accept Megawati's candidacy were seven leaders of PDI regency branches in Central Java last October.
Their lead was then followed by activists of youth organizations affiliated to the PDI, one of Indonesia's three political organizations which resemble an opposition party.
The People's Consultative Assembly will convene in March 1998 to elect a new president for the next five-year term.
Incumbent President Soeharto has obtained strong support from more than 12 organizations associated with the ruling Golkar group and is expected to retain his post.
In what looks like intensified efforts to garner backing for Megawati, PDI activists have been collecting signatures from those who want to have her as the future President.
They are distributing forms for party members and supporters to affirm their support for her. The form, which does not state who issues it, states that the PDI executive board nominates Megawati and that the board is striving to make sure that the future President and Vice President be elected by a vote, not by consensus as has been the practice in the past.
But officials from the PDI's executive board denied any knowledge of the forms.
"The initiative comes from individual party members. We aren't orchestrating it," said PDI deputy chairman Soetardjo Soerjogoeritno.
Over the past 30 years, the People's Consultative Assembly has had only a single presidential candidate, Soeharto. Pro-democracy activists have been anxious to see more than one nominee in the forthcoming assembly.
Aberson said that everyone knows Megawati's chances of winning the race are next to nothing. "We mean to exercise our constitutional right to have our own nominee," he said.
He maintained that the forms are useful because it helps PDI executives know what ordinary people really want them to do.
"The forms were prepared by individual members, not by any PDI office and I don't think it is necessary that she (Megawati) knows about them," he said. (sim/pan)
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