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)