PDI joins campaign against election fraud
PDI joins campaign against election fraud
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) joined the United Development Party (PPP) yesterday in calling for changes in the electoral rules to ensure a clean general election in 1997.
PDI chairperson Megawati Soekarnoputri outlined the party's demands in a speech to mark the party's 23rd anniversary in Ambon, Maluku last night.
The government should do away with the "silent week" period normally set after the end of the month-long election campaign and before polling day, Megawati said as quoted by Antara.
The seven-day period is intended to cool off the situation after the normally tense, and sometimes violent, campaigns.
"Past experiences showed that many violations occurred during this silent week. Some people were intimidated and they became too restless to be able to vote according to their conscience," she was quoted as saying.
She did not specify who committed these violations or intimidations, but it is widely understood that she was referring to Golkar, the dominant political group which has won every single election held under President Soeharto's rule since 1971.
Megawati called on the Armed Forces and the Civil Service to maintain neutrality during the elections. "They too have to uphold and enforce the law, and punish violations irrespective of who commit them," she said.
PPP chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum in a hard hitting speech last week also announced his party's intention to seek changes in the law on election, to prevent cheating and ensure that violations do not go unpunished as they have in the past.
Both PPP and PDI are also insisting that polling day be declared a national holiday to allow people to cast their vote at polling booths closer to home, instead of at their offices, where they face possible intimidation by their employers.
While it may be too late to change the law on election in time for the 1997 polls, the two minority parties could, theoretically at least, insist on changes in the electoral regulations. Both minority parties have become more vocal about the cheating allegedly committed by Golkar in past elections.
PDI is a coalition of five nationalist and Christian parties which were merged as the government sought to pare the number of political parties contesting the election down to three.
The party's public standing was boosted in 1993 with the election of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesia's first president, the late Sukarno. Megawati was swept into the post by party supporters in defiance of government pressures.
Megawati, however, is not without her share of problems and a number of senior party leaders, with the tacit support of some government officials, have continued to flaunt her leadership by forming rival boards in the provinces.
In East Java, PDI's participation in the provincial election committee may be forfeited unless it resolves the conflict over the chapter's leadership, which has been fiercely fought between one camp who supports Megawati and one who opposes her leadership.
Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M. has given PDI until the end of the month to resolve the conflict in East Java. (emb/imn)