PPP criticizes pressure on high school students

JAKARTA (JP): The chairman of the city chapter of the United Development Party (PPP) criticized what he called pressure on first time voters to vote for Golkar.

Rusjdi Hamka said Saturday that teachers have been "indoctrinating" students into voting for a "certain party".

He said students have been threatened with failing their final exams if they did not vote for the "certain party".

"We have heard reports about threats at several schools," Rusjdi said, declining to name them.

"Involving students is good for their political education. We recommend involving students but not organizing them. We object to students being indoctrinated ... this always happens here..," he said, referring to past elections.

Threatening and indoctrinating students, "is dangerous and could produce robot-like students. That's poisoning them," he said.

Jakarta has 700,000 17-year-old first-time voters.

Yesterday education ministry officials were unavailable for comment.

The Ministry of Education and Culture's city office spokesman, Adis Hadianegara, said only that the ministry had ruled that campaigns should not disrupt school.

A teacher at a private vocational school in Central Jakarta complained that pressure was being put on schools and teachers. She said teachers were told by the ministry that each of them should recruit 10 cadres for Golkar.

"Teachers sign up children whose parents are civil servants or ABRI, to make sure nothing happens to them," the source, who requested anonymity, said.

"We feel this is pressure on teachers," she said.

In South Jakarta, students said Golkar had teachers recruiting three students in every class. Like the source in Central Jakarta, parents here said they feared graduation certificates would be hard to get if their children did not vote Golkar. The students said they feared there was no guarantee their vote would be secret.

"Please do not make trouble. Just follow me. I am a civil servant," a student quoted a female teacher as telling the class.

Parents of other children at the same school said they were concerned about forms that were sent to them by the school recently.

The ambiguously worded forms ask parents to fill in the name of their child, and confirm that the child is either a teacher, student or employee of the school.

But the forms were accompanied by a verbal message to students explaining that all eligible voters at the school should register to vote at a polling station near the school. And this form would transfer their registration from polling booths near their homes to one near the school.

"If there is nothing suspicious going on, why is the form so unclear?" a parent said.

Head of the city's social and political office, Bagus Suharyono, said that because May 29 was not a holiday, all students should vote near their school. Polling stations are not allowed in school grounds. (ste/anr)