PDI decides criteria for new leadership
JAKARTA (JP): The likelihood of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the ousted leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), regaining her post in June's government-sanctioned congress declined yesterday as one of the criteria set forth for leadership candidates requires them to have been actively participants in last year's general election.
PDI deputy chairwoman Clara Marion Lientje Sitompul Tambunan, met with the Ministry of Home Affairs' director general for sociopolitical affairs, Maj. Gen. Achdary, to present a set of criteria for the PDI leadership candidates.
One of the criteria clearly specifies that the party's chair must have actively taken part in the May 1998 election.
"Otherwise, he or she will not pass the screening for the PDI's leadership race," Clara later told journalists without specifically mentioning Megawati.
Megawati was ousted in a government-backed rebel PDI congress in June 1996 and replaced by Soerjadi.
The criteria presented yesterday also stipulate that PDI leadership candidates should have endeavored to achieve the best for the party in the general election.
"Any candidate, who contributed to PDI's total failure in last year's election, should not be renominated at the party congress," she said.
PDI flopped in the nationwide elections, winning only the minimum 11 seats in the House of Representatives.
The dominant Golkar won 325 of the 425 House seats up for grabs, while the United Development Party (PPP) also made big gains by winning 89 House seats.
Many have attributed PDI's collapse from winning 56 seats in the 1992 election to just 11, to Megawati's boycott of the poll.
Clara also said yesterday that the next PDI leader should be a figure capable of uniting the party.
She dismissed the possibility of former minister of transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo's participation in the leadership race.
"A candidate must be a PDI cadre, not an outsider," she said.
Siswono, a Golkar-turned nationalist, was given ministerial posts in the fifth and sixth development cabinets because of his Golkar membership.
He has been described by many as a potential candidate to lead PDI after Soerjadi.
Asked about the venue for the party congress, Clara said any city in Java would be suitable as they would be the easiest to reach.
PDI was born in 1973 out of a merger 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. (imn)