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)