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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