Rights activist advises rival PDI leaders to reconcile
SEMARANG (JP): The government's call for the rival camps in the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) to reconcile their differences found support from a human rights activist and a member of the Supreme Advisory Council yesterday.
Rights campaigner Muladi and council member Harsudiono Hartas said they believed the best way to end PDI's leadership crisis would be for the opposing camps to talk and narrow their differences.
The rift-ridden PDI leadership has been split into two. One camp is loyal to the democratically elected chief, Megawati Soekarnoputri. Her political foes, with the government's backing, unseated her and elected Soerjadi as their chairman.
The government recognizes only Soerjadi, a former PDI chief who was last reelected in 1993. He had been rejected by the government at that time on the grounds that he had "legal and political defects".
"Megawati and Soerjadi should reconcile and they should concentrate on the upcoming general election," said Muladi, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights.
He said that all PDI leaders should be aware that the party should not be serving either Soerjadi's nor Megawati's interests, but the party's as a whole.
Muladi, also known as an expert on criminal law at Diponegoro University and a senior local executive of the ruling Golkar party, said he was sure the conflict would hurt PDI's showing in next year's election.
"PDI leaders should be wary of that disastrous consequence," he said.
Hartas suggested that communication is the key to the solution of the long-standing bickering in the nationalist-Christian alliance.
Hartas, a former chief of the powerful sociopolitical affairs division of the Armed Forces, said he observed that rival PDI members have lost the spirit of deliberation for consensus to end the conflict.
Court action
On Megawati's plan to sue the government for supporting the breakaway party members' rebel congress in Medan, North Sumatra, Muladi said she has every right to do that.
Megawati intends to file the law suit with the State Administrative Court against the minister of home affairs and the National Police chief. Her move has received support from senior pro-democracy lawyers, who offered to defend her free of charge.
"The (administrative) court is the right channel for the public to solve any dispute with the state," Muladi said.
He said, however, that he would rather see leaders of the minority party solve their internal problems without the intervention of a third party. (har/pan)