PDI advised to elect new leader at congress
PDI advised to elect new leader at congress
JAKARTA (JP): Political observer Nazaruddin Syamsuddin says
the key to solving the protracted internal dispute of the
Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) is to elect a "new, lawful
chairmanship".
"The root of PDI's internal dispute is the party's existing
central board," Nazaruddin told participants of a discussion
titled Seeking solutions to the PDI internal disputes held
yesterday.
He said the current chairmanship under Megawati Soekarnoputri
is "temporary" in nature because it was established in a meeting
of which the status was lower than a national congress, during
which a central board is usually elected.
Megawati won majority votes of the party's regional branches
in a disputed extraordinary congress in Surabaya, East Java, in
December 1993. The decision was legalized in a national
"deliberation" meeting in January 1994.
Nazaruddin said the "less lawful" central board had caused
friction among members of the party's central board as well as
its regional branches.
"It caused unrest among members after it got rid of all
opposing members from either the central board or the regional
branches," he said. Therefore, "the party should hold a congress
and elect a new chief," he said.
PDI was born out of the merging of five former nationalist and
Christian political parties -- the Indonesian Nationalist Party,
the Murba Party, the Independence Vanguard Party, the Indonesian
Catholic Party and the Christian Party.
Among the most urgent tasks PDI faces now is solving
protracted internal conflicts, especially in regards to the rival
leadership in the East Java chapter.
The government earlier this year denied PDI its representation
on the local general election committee on the grounds that the
leadership dispute of its East Java chapter had not been settled,
with two men, Sutjipto and Latief Pudjosakti, claiming the
position.
Another, no-less difficult problem to be solved is what some
analysts describe as the government's meddling in PDI's affairs,
to check its growth so that it does not grow bigger than the
ruling Golkar.
An example of the latest problem is the series of bans imposed
on chairperson Megawati Soekarnoputri and other party executives
when they tried to hold meetings with supporters in many regions
recently.
The rumors about some party leaders' past communist links and
the establishment of a rival executive board led by Jusuf Merukh
were other examples of the problems PDI has had to deal with over
the past few years.
Organized by the Solidaritas Foundation, the discussion only
featured Nazaruddin as the speaker after three other speakers --
party executives Sabam Sirait and Alexander Litaay, and member of
the opposite camp Edwin Soenawar Soekowati -- failed to show up.
"I refuse to participate in the discussion because it is
engineered by opposing member Jusuf Merukh," Sirait said as
quoted by an organizer. (imn)