PPP finally accepts Soeharto's speech

JAKARTA (JP): The United Development Party (PPP) accepted President Soeharto's leadership accountability speech yesterday but denied it had buckled under pressure from the two most powerful factions to do so.

"The PPP faction in the Assembly can accept the President's speech of accountability," party spokesman Chosin Chumaidy said in a plenary session.

PPP leaders said they announced their stand three days earlier than promised because the Assembly's internal rules require every faction to state their stand at the preliminary meeting.

"There was no pressure from any outside party," said Jusuf Syakir, PPP faction chief in the 1,000-strong Assembly, after the meeting.

He denied accusations that the Moslem-oriented party, which has 134 Assembly members, had broken its promise to maintain its tough stance on the President's leadership accountability speech.

PPP enjoyed flattering publicity after it was the only faction in the People's Consultative Assembly which dared to withhold its approval of the speech Soeharto delivered Sunday.

But the decision provoked sharp reactions from the dominant government-backed Golkar and the powerful ABRI factions.

These included charges that PPP had been inconsistent with its decision to renominate Soeharto. The two government factions said the minority party could not renominate the President but not accept his speech.

Politicians from the two government factions also said that PPP was deliberately viewing the President's 2,000-page report from a negative point of view.

The other four factions, Golkar, the Armed Forces (ABRI), the regional representatives and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) all reaffirmed their acceptance yesterday.

Unlike other factions, PPP did not include the word wholly after the word accept.

But PPP, the second largest political organization after Golkar, remained critical of the speech, saying that Soeharto failed to clearly account for countless failures and discrepancies that led to the current crisis.

Usamah Hisyam, a PPP legislator, said his party was only trying to be honest when it launched its criticism of the New Order government's failures that the President did not mention.

"President Soeharto has often said he has no objection to being criticized as long as it is constructive. I don't understand why people made so much fuss about it," he said.

Observers say that the PPP's delayed acceptance of the President's speech was only a trick to steal some publicity because the party had decided long ago to renominate Soeharto.

In its views presented to yesterday's plenary session, PPP praised Soeharto for his ability to carry out his constitutional duties.

"The President has proven his loyalty to the Constitution and given his leadership accountability before the Assembly, the respected highest law-making body," Chozin said.

Among Soeharto's successes PPP highlighted was his success in reducing the number of Indonesians living in absolute poverty to 22.5 million in 1996 from 70 million in 1970.

In the current sixth Five-Year Development Plan, that ends this month, the PPP noted that under the Soeharto government, the economy grew by an average of 7.1 percent a year, the population by 1.5 percent, per capita income exceeded $1,000 and annual inflation was 5.2 percent before the economic crisis started last July.

But the party noted the widening economic disparity, worsening corruption in the bureaucracy and the concentration of corporate wealth in the hands of a privileged few.

The party warned that the economic crisis was a turning point in the country's efforts to build a strong economic base.

It repeated its demand for political reforms and a bigger budget for education, which now stands at 3.2 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product compared to Malaysia's 5.3 percent and Singapore's 4.8 percent. (pan/imn)