PDI decides criteria for new leadership

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)