Subdistrict head election questioned

Subdistrict head election questioned

TANGERANG (JP): About 500 residents of Rawa Rengas village in
Kosambi district staged a rally at the Tangerang regency office
on Saturday to urge Tangerang regent Agus Djunara to investigate
deviations in the process of electing the new chief of their
subdistrict.

The residents, whose transportation to the regency office was
apparently financed by Uci Sanusi, one of the subdistrict head
candidates who failed the pre-ballot screening, believed that the
election process was overshadowed by rampant collusion,
corruption and nepotism practices.

Uci's elementary school diploma was declared fake by the
Tangerang sociopolitical affairs office, which handled the
election process.

However, Uci strongly denied that his diploma was fictitious.
"It was engineered in such a way so as to prevent me from being
elected," he said.

Regency spokesman H.E. Kusnadi deplored the activities of the
subdistrict head candidates who were disqualified from the
election, particularly those who mobilized large numbers of
people to protest.

"Whether the diploma is genuine or not will be checked by the
Jakarta office of the Ministry of Education and Culture, which
issued the diploma," Kusnadi said.

Rawa Rengas is one of the 119 subdistricts in Tangerang whose
head's term of office has recently expired.

While subdistrict heads used to only have to hold elementary
school diplomas, they were now obliged to have at least junior
high school qualifications in line with the more complicated
problems they now had to face, Kusnadi said. (41/hhr)