PPP tells government to be neutral
PADANG, West Sumatra (JP): The United Development Party (PPP) demanded yesterday that the government stop requiring bureaucrats to help Golkar win the general election.
PPP chief Ismail Hasan Metareum said bureaucrats' obligations to help Golkar had made them neglect their duties as civil servants.
"Bureaucrats are servants of their bosses and will only listen to their orders," Ismail told 10,000 party supporters in a campaign at Merdeka soccer field in the eastern coastal Pariaman regency.
The PPP, Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) will vie for 425 seats in the House of Representatives in the May 29 election.
According to law, civil servants must be politically neutral, but the Civil Servants Association requires all bureaucrats to vote for Golkar. The PPP has repeatedly demanded that they be allowed to exercise their basic right to affiliate with any political organization.
Ismail said it was a public secret that government officials were mobilized to help Golkar in every general election and they would be in trouble if they refused.
"They will obtain certain financial rewards and smooth career development," he said.
The six million-strong civil service and the Armed Forces are Golkar's backbone. The army founded Golkar in 1964 to counter the growing influence of the Indonesian Communist Party.
Ismail said that government officials would lose their jobs if they failed to achieve Golkar vote targets set by their superiors.
"Therefore, bureaucrats compete with each other to make Golkar win the election in their respective areas," he said.
Ismail said the requirement to help Golkar put bureaucrats in a difficult position, often making them break the law.
"So don't be surprised if you find bureaucrats misbehaving," he said, adding that people were amazed by the government's corrupt practices.
The PPP, which aims to win 96 seats in the House, has opted for clean governance and political revitalization as its main campaign themes. The party now holds 62 seats.
Ismail said it was difficult to seek legal action against corrupt government officials who used state facilities for Golkar's interests.
This, he said, made justice hard to uphold.
"A commoner will be imprisoned for stealing a pair of slippers, while a bureaucrat manipulating votes in the general elections gets a promotion," he said.
He cited attempted poll rigging in a Bengkulu subdistrict and preliminary ballot counting in a regency in Lampung at the 1992 general election as examples of manipulation.
Ismail told reporters after the rally that it would not bother him whether the Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M. would follow up his complaint on the Bengkulu poll-rigging scandal.
"The most important thing is that the minister knows that we know there has been attempted poll rigging," he said.
He said he had reported the Bengkulu case to Yogie last week.
In Surakarta yesterday, a Republika journalist reported that dozens of Golkar supporters had attacked the house of Abdul Jalil, the father of PPP official Muh. Taufik, on their way home from rallies around the ancient town.
Taufik's sister was injured by an exploding molotov cocktail.
"The mob threw stones at the house and almost set fire to it if neighbors had not come to the rescue," the reporter said, adding that no arrests were made.
On Sunday, at a PPP rally in Cilacap district, Central Java, the party's supporters wrecked three police vehicles which had got in the way of their convoy.
No injuries were reported. Banyumas police chief Col. Binarto told The Jakarta Post yesterday that police had arrested six PPP supporters in Cilacap for destroying police property.
During Sunday's street rallies, two PPP supporters were killed when their motorcycle hit a telephone pole. (imn/aan/wah)