Nine more parties face screening

Nine more parties face screening

JAKARTA: A number of heavyweight parties are among nine
political parties now undergoing screening by the Ministry of
Justice and Human Rights to verify their administrative
eligibility to contest the 2004 general election.

Among the parties are the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan). the Golkar Party, the National Mandate
Party (PAN), and newcomer, the New Indonesia Alliance (PIB).

The verification process started on Friday and it will take
the ministry two weeks to complete the scrutiny, but the results
will only be announced on Aug. 22, said Ramli Hutabarat, the
ministry's team director for political party verification.

The ministry will have endorsed nine parties, with 22 others
in the pipeline after the upcoming screening process has been
completed, Ramli said.

Administrative vetting is the first step that must be gone
through by political parties before being declared eligible to
contest the election next year.

There are 237 political parties in the country, but only 66 of
them have registered to contest the election. -- JP