NU to settle PKB dispute next week

SURABAYA: Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) will help settle the dispute between two warring groups of the National Awakening Party (PKB), which it established prior to the 1999 general election.

NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi said on Wednesday there would be a meeting of the organization's legislative and executive body in Pati, Central Java next Monday.

"It will be a meeting of NU leaders, a similar forum that established PKB in 1999," Hasyim said in Surabaya.

He said NU decided to help settle the prolonged leadership feud as it may divide NU supporters in next year's election.

The party split into two factions in the last days of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, the PKB patron, in 2001. One faction is led by Abdurrahman's loyalist Alwi Shihab, the other by Matori Abdul Djalil, a supporter of Abdurrahman's successor incumbent President Megawati Soekarnoputri.--Antara