New Jakarta City Council will wipe slate clean

New Jakarta City Council will wipe slate clean

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The composition of the next Jakarta City Council will have a
positive influence on the performance of the council and the
Jakarta administration, as its members will be more critical.

The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD) ballot count
final result confirmed that only 15 of the 75 newly elected
councillors were old faces.

Of the 75 seats up for grabs, the Prosperous Justice Party
(PKS) took 18 compared with four previously, followed by the
Democratic Party with 16 and the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI-P) with 11 (previously 30).

"The new council will be more dynamic as it will be dominated
by new faces that are expected to be more critical of Governor
Sutiyoso's administration," said political analyst Syamsuddin
Harris of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) on Sunday.

Therefore, he added, the new council would perform better than
the existing council, which was often alleged to be collusion
with administration officials.

Sutiyoso has hitherto been strongly supported by the PDI-P.
Party chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri, who is also the
country's president, ordered party members to vote for Sutiyoso
in last year's gubernatorial election, even though Sutiyoso was
implicated in an attack in July 1996 on the PDI headquarters on
Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta.

Syamsuddin said that the emergence of PKS legislative
candidates -- who during the campaign emphasized the need for
clean governance -- was expected to provide a good example for
other councillors.

"The new councillors will force the administration to perform
better. Otherwise, it will come under attack with strong
criticism from councillors."

Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) chairman Azas Tigor Nainggolan
made a similar comment.

He said that strong criticism would be leveled by most
councillors, not only those from the PKS and the National Mandate
Party (PAN), as had happened previously.

He added that Sutiyoso would also lose support from PDI-P
councillors because the governor was partly to blame for the
party's poor performance.

Some PDI-P executives argued that Sutiyoso's many evictions
since last year had angered many of the party supporters because
the party had made it possible for the governor to be reelected.

Tigor expressed hope that the governor would drop its
unpopular policies, particularly evictions, as they had brought
only misery to thousands of city dwellers.

"If he doesn't change his policies, Sutiyoso's position as
governor is under threat," he said.

Newly elected councillors are also expected to level sharp
criticism of the administration's performance.

"If major factions on the council are not happy with the
governor's performance, they can reject his annual accountability
speech. I think the council may even propose that the governor be
replaced," Tigor said.

However, Syamsuddin said that it would not be easy to replace
the governor before he had completed his tenure. He pointed out,
though, that Sutiyoso would face problems if he failed to perform
better, particularly in fighting corruption.