Soccer hooligans ready and waiting

SURABAYA: The annual soccer league championship final is still several months away, but thousands of soccer hooligans here are ready to flock to Jakarta in support of Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Ruslan Abdul Gani, who chairs the Forum for Democracy Enforcement People (FRPD), an institution which organizes soccer hooligans, said on Monday that 5,000 and 10,000 people would begin to trickle into Jakarta on Oct. 17 to express their support for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) chairwoman.

"We won't use force or violence to reach our political objectives," Ruslan said.

He denied that the deployment of hooligans, locally known as bonek, was aimed at putting pressure on the People's Consultative Assembly to elect Megawati the next president.

In Cilacap, Central Java, a group of 100 Megawati loyalists plan to travel to Jakarta on Oct. 16.

"We are ready to talk all the risks, including the possibility of clashing with rival supporters," a local PDI Perjuangan officials, Supangat, said. (45/nur)