Muhammadiyah to elect chairmanship candidates

Muhammadiyah to elect chairmanship candidates

By Santi WE Sukanto and Wisnu Pramudya

BANDA ACEH, Aceh (JP): About 100 leading members of the Moslem
organization Muhammadiyah will begin today the preliminary
process of electing the group's chairman by short-listing 39 of
the 95 registered candidates.

In a meeting of Muhammadiyah's law-making body, the Tanwir,
expected by the leaders to proceed in a democratic manner,
representatives of the 26 provincial branches of the reformist
organization will be asked to name the leaders of their choice.

Muhammadiyah Vice Chairman Syafii Maarif said that two of the
candidates were A.M. Fatwa and H.M. Sanusi, members of the Petisi
50 group of staunch government critics. Each have spent nine
years in prison for subversion.

In its 1985 and 1990 congresses, Muhammadiyah leaders were
"ordered" by the authorities not to include any Petisi 50 members
in the group's election process. Petisi 50 is led by former
Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin.

"But that was then," Syafii told The Jakarta Post. "There
were political, security reasons for that. It's different now.
They are members of Muhammadiyah, they have rights and they are
free."

The other candidates include incumbent Amien Rais; Golkar
leading member Din Syamsuddin; former Muhammadiyah vice chairman
Lukman Harun; Syafii himself; senior leader Prodjokusumo; a low-
profile ulema from East Java, Abdurrahim Nur; and Secretary
Rusjdi Hamka.

Syafii said that, so far, the Tanwir meeting, which is a
prelude to the congress proper -- to be opened by President
Soeharto on Thursday -- has been proceeding relatively free from
any external pressures.

Golkar

Rusjdi said, however, that the whole issue of "pressure from
outside elements" could not be separated from the fact that the
Muhammadiyah has 28 million members, making it an appealing
potential power base for any political grouping in the country.

Attempts to drag Muhammadiyah into politics have come from
various quarters, including Golkar, through local government
officials, said Rusjdi, who was recently elected chairman of the
Jakarta branch of the United Development Party (PPP).

Rusjdi noted the persistence of State Minister of Food Ibrahim
Hasan, when he was governor of this province, in urging
Muhammadiyah to hold a congress in Aceh.

Ibrahim had strongly urged Muhammadiyah to hold the congress
here since 1985, an informed source told The Jakarta Post. Only
in 1990, when Ibrahim attended a Muhammadiyah congress as an
ordinary participant, did the organization's leaders accept his
offer.

Before 1987, Golkar, the government political grouping, had
never won any of the three general elections in Aceh, which had
been a stronghold of the PPP.

Rusjdi said the considerable assistance that the local
administration had provided for the Muhammadiyah congress here
was part of the Golkar campaign to convince the Acehnese that it
pays as great attention toward Islamic causes as the PPP does.

Rusjdi said that, should the Golkar campaign succeed, the PPP
would do even worse in the 1997 general elections. "I think, in
that case, the PPP will be wiped out here," he told the Post.

The Tanwir is expected to end tonight. Tomorrow, hundreds of
Muhammadiyah leaders will hold a special forum to deliberate
contemporary questions, including labor conditions and national
culture.

Amien Rais said yesterday that the ulemas would examine the
two issues from the perspective of Islamic law and would probably
establish a smaller team to conduct more intensive study and
prepare solutions.

Some 50 Acehnese ulemas from other organizations will also
take part in the meeting, one of the functions of which is to
issue religious decrees (fatwa) to Muhammadiyah members.