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