PPP sets conditions for PDI-P
Fitri Wulandari and Slamet Santoso , The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Yogyakarta
The Muslim-based United Development Party (PPP) has laid down some tough conditions for current President Megawati Soekarnoputri if she wants its leader and current Vice President Hamzah Haz to remain as her running mate.
The conditions include an authority over a number of portfolios and shared power with the president to pick ministers, a PPP leader says.
"We want control of certain fields like technology or the economy," PPP deputy leader Aliwarman Hanan said on Friday.
If Megawati is reelected, he said, she must involve Hamzah and PPP in the selection of the Cabinet ministers. This, despite the fact that the law states that the president has the sole right to select ministers, Alimarwan added. Megawati is the leader of the secular nationalist Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI- P).
Aliwarman said the third condition was that if Hamzah became vice president, PPP would require that the next government put an emphasis on the "nurturing of religious life" in line with the first item mentioned in the country's official ideology, "Belief in One God".
It was not clear whether Aliwarman was implying a move toward sharia law -- a hot political issue of late for Islamic-based parties.
"If these conditions are not acceptable, PDI-P will not form a coalition with PPP," Alimarwan told reporters on Friday.
The rise of Gen. (ret) Wiranto on Wednesday as the candidate from the Golkar Party has reconfigured the political landscape, prompting major political parties to review their strategies.
Apart from Hamzah, Megawati is also eyeing a former Golkar candidate, Yogyakarta's popular Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X as her running mate.
PPP officials have already made clear that the party, which is likely to finish fourth when the legislative election's final results are in, is willing to fill the vice presidential slot by teaming up with another party.
On Thursday, Wiranto met with Hamzah Haz, which some have speculated could lead to an alliance with PPP. Wiranto has said Golkar, which is likely to garner the largest portion of the popular vote (at just over 21 percent) in the legislative elections, must forge a coalition with another party if it wants to win the presidency as well.
However, Alimarwan said a coalition with Golkar was only a slim possibility given their rocky historical past vis a vis PPP.
"We have good relations with Pak Wiranto. But the past history between Golkar and PPP makes if difficult for Pak Hamzah to make a coalition with them," Alimarwan said.
Golkar was the formidable electoral machine of former autocrat Soeharto, which was often accused of using staunch divide and rule tactics to keep PPP weak.
In Yogyakarta, Megawati's younger brother Guruh Soekarnoputra, who is a member of PDI-P, and Sultan Hamengkubuwono X said that they discussed issues linked to national leadership.
"We talked at length about many things. We're both concerned about the situation with our nation and we exchanged ideas on how to do good for the country," Guruh told reporters after the two- hour meeting.
Sultan Hamengkubuwono X withdrew from Golkar's convention series in protest after the Supreme Court exonerated Akbar Tandjung from corruption charges in February. Guruh refused to comment when asked whether he had conveyed a special message from Megawati to the Sultan.