PPP and PDI urge capital to be model city in election

JAKARTA (JP): The chairmen of the city chapters of the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) said Jakarta should set a good example in this year's election.

Rusdi Hamka of PPP, and Lukman Mokoginta of PDI, yesterday questioned the way Golkar used city programs to get votes.

Rusdi said the dominant Golkar group was being "excessive" in its attempt to win votes.

Lukman said the Jakarta administration (ruled by Golkar) should be fair in the run-up to the election and not "hurt the feelings" of the other parties. The capital should set a good example for towns across the country.

Lukman and Rusdi were commenting separately on the distribution of 25,000 free identity cards to the poor by the West Jakarta mayoralty earlier this month, and Thursday's ceremony in which Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro launched flood control and school renovation projects.

Sources said Wardiman was acting in his capacity as Golkar's patron for Jakarta. The ceremony site in Rawabadak, North Jakarta, was decked out in yellow but there was no direct mention of Golkar.

Rusdi said this kind of action could not be hidden from the foreign observers who would be allowed here during the election.

"Such things should not happen in the city," Rusdi said.

He said the PPP was "helpless" because Golkar was making the most of every possible opportunity like the North Jakarta ceremony.

The projects launched in North Jakarta, worth around Rp 44 billion (US$18.1 million), were three flood control projects for North Jakarta and seven senior and junior high school renovations.

Also present were Governor Surjadi, North Jakarta mayor Suprawito and officials.

Rusdi said he would question these actions this week at the next meeting of the city's election committee. Party chairmen are members of the committee.

But he said he felt it was "useless" to file a protest with the election committee.

"If we question these actions there is always an excuse such as Golkar was just meeting its cadres," Rusdi said. Party officials of PDI and PPP have frequently charged Golkar with jumping the campaign start, which officially begins on April 27. It ends on May 23.

Linking city programs to Golkar was not necessary because "Golkar will be made to win anyway," Rusdi said.

Governor Surjadi Soedirdja, as chairman of the city's election committee, has repeatedly told city committee members to remember that Jakarta, as the country's capital, will be in the spotlight in the May election.

At the opening of West Jakarta's new mayoralty office last week, mayor Sutardjijanto denied the free identity cards had anything to do with the election. He said they were "assistance from the strong to the weak".

Lukman said if the municipality claimed that doing favors had nothing to do with Golkar's effort to win votes, it should prove that these favors are not only done close to elections.

Lukman also said he was not sure who Wardiman was representing at the North Jakarta ceremony. "Maybe the President, but we will find out," he said.

Also yesterday Golkar city chairman Tadjus Sobirin quoted Surjadi as saying that the political groups should participate in the election in line with state ideology Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. (anr/11)