Supporters protest Jefri's dismissal
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
More than 100 people claiming to be religious and community leaders from Kampar regency, Riau, met with the House of Representatives's Commission II on home affairs on Thursday to protest the recent dismissal of Kampar regent Jefri Noer, which they said was a result of political engineering.
Zamzami, who represented the protesters said they rejected as invalid the Kampar legislature's decision to dismiss the regent and his deputy A. Zakir.
"The teachers rally was engineered by certain parties in the local political elite because a majority of people living in Kampar do not support the regent's dismissal," he said.
The regental legislative council agreed unanimously to dismiss the regent and his deputy on Feb. 21 after a series of massive rallies that involved tens of thousands of teachers in the province. The rallies were triggered by the expulsion from a meeting of a senior high school principal who questioned the low education budget for the regency in the 2004 fiscal year. The regent's action was considered an insult to the teaching profession.
It was the second time the regency legislative council recommended that the home minister dismiss the regent after Jefri was believed to have used a fake senior high school certificate to meet administrative requirements to run in the regental elections in 2002. Jefri ignored a no-confidence motion by the regency legislature and the home minister decided to defend the regent to prevent similar incidents from happening in other regions.
Home minister Hari Sabarno who has the authority to fire regional heads has barred the regent and his deputy from making decisions on important matters while a team from the home ministry are carrying out an investigation into the case.
Zamzami, also a Muslim cleric, warned of conflict between the supporters of Jefri and those who wished to see him dismissed.
"If the home minister listens to the regental legislature's recommendation, conflict will be inevitable and it will be a bad precedence for other regencies," he said.
In a related development, the local chapter of Golkar Party has recommended that Golkar's central committee pull out two legislators who failed to show up when the regency legislature conducted a plenary session to determine Jefri's fate on Feb. 21.
Secretary of the Kampar Golkar Party DPD, Syafrizal said in the regency town of Bangkinang on Thursday, that in the plenary session that took place on Wednesday, the majority of Golkar supporters in the regency had demanded that the two legislators be withdrawn from the regency legislature.
Syahrizal was referring to Zen Arif and Zen Simin who were absent from the plenary session for unspecified reasons.