Soeharto tells parties to reflect on campaign

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto told the three parties yesterday to look back and see whether they had played by the campaign rules.

"It's the contestants themselves who must evaluate whether they have obeyed all the rules during campaigning," President Soeharto was quoted as saying by Soekarto, the secretary-general of the National Council for Security and Defense.

"The contestants can then convey the results of their evaluations to the government as input for future improvement," Soeharto said. "The government will not do the evaluating."

Among the rules he referred to are the presidential decree on election campaigning, decrees by the ministers of information and home affairs and police regulations.

Soekarto had told Soeharto about the drafting of the Broad Guidelines of State Policies, which will be submitted to the People's Consultative Assembly in next year's General Assembly to elect the nation's president and vice president.

Soekarto said that he and his staff had not discussed the campaign with the President.

"Hopefully, the draft of the state policies will be seen as accommodating many people's aspirations," Soekarto said. "Let there be no misperception that President Soeharto was the one who drafted the state policies."

The United Development Party, Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party are contesting the May 29 poll, vying for 425 out of the 500 seats in the House of Representatives. The remaining 75 seats are allocated to members of the Armed Forces who do not vote.

Soekarto was accompanied by microbiologist Pratiwi Sudharmono and other council members.

The council was commissioned by President Soeharto last year to draft the 1997 campaign and election rules, which some contestants have said are restrictive.

Among the rules is the division of campaigning areas into three zones to prevent supporters of rival parties clashing. Zones one includes Kalimantan and Sulawesi. Zone two includes Sumatra, East Timor, East and West Nusa Tenggara and Bali. Zone three includes Java, Maluku and Irian Jaya.

Despite the zoning, violent clashes between supporters of rival parties happened across the country. The government has lashed out at the three parties for violating a ban on street rallies, which often escalated into full-blown riots.

The General Elections Institute routinely evaluated the campaign as did the Election Supervision Committee and representatives of the three parties.

Violence

Meanwhile, the United States government has expressed concern over the riots ahead of the May 29 election, Media Indonesia's Washington correspondent, Yenni Djahidin, reported.

"We find the number of election-related riots this year to be disturbing," State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Wednesday.

"Indonesia's electoral system severely limits political competition and Indonesian citizens do not have the ability to change the government through democratic means," Burns said.

"We believe that Indonesia should move toward a political system in which the will of the people can be heard," he said. (06/swe)