PPP told to file lawsuit over dropped candidates

PPP told to file lawsuit over dropped candidates

JAKARTA (JP): Chairman of the Election Screening Committee
Sutoyo N.K. challenged yesterday the Moslem-based United
Development Party (PPP) to sue the General Election Institute for
rejecting their legislature candidates.

"They can take legal action if they're not satisfied with the
result of the committee's screening of candidates," Sutoyo said
after attending a national meeting of Indonesia's 27 governors
yesterday.

He denied the committee had committed any trickery when
screening the PPP candidates. He said the whole screening process
was conducted openly and involved the three political contestants
-- the PPP, the Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).

PPP Secretary-General Tosari Wijaya said Tuesday the party was
planning to sue the General Election Institute for rejecting its
election candidates "without clear grounds".

"We'll file a lawsuit against the General Election Institute
once we have strong evidence of 'violations of procedures',"
Tosari said. He did not explain why the party executives were
suspicious of foul play in the screening process.

Last week, at a General Election Institute meeting, Sutoyo
announced that the committee had rejected 130 candidates from the
PPP, 21 from Golkar and 106 from the Indonesian Democratic Party.
The number approved for the provisional list of legislature
candidates was 2,293.

Each political group submitted the names of a maximum 850
candidates for next year's election. The figure is twice the
number of House of Representatives seats up for grabs; the
remaining 75 House seats are reserved for the Armed Forces, whose
members do not vote.

Sutoyo said the nominees' were rejected because they had
failed to meet the screening deadline and provide all the
required documents.

Sutoyo did not say if there were candidates who actually
failed the screening procedure, which was to weed out candidates
with past communist links.

Tosari, however, blasted the institute for what he said was
"groundless rejection" of the party's candidates.

He said of the 130 rejected nominees, 55 had not received the
obligatory no-communists-links statements from Bakorstanas, the
internal security agency involved in the screening, while three
others were rejected because they were civil servants.

Members of the Corps of Civil Servants are tacitly expected to
be loyal to Golkar. (imn)