Tangerang gets new regent for 2003/2008

Tangerang gets new regent for 2003/2008

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tigaraksa, Banten

At the council building in the Tangerang regency capital of
Tigaraksa on Thursday, the legislative council elected Ismet
Iskandar as the new regent of Tangerang for the 2003-2008 term
and Norodom Sukarno as his deputy regent.

Ismet Iskandar is currently the secretary to the Tangerang
regency administration, and Norodom Sukarno is the chairman of
the regency branch of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI Perjuangan).

Ismet was nominated by the Nation Awakening Party (PKB) and
the Nahdlatul Ummat Party (PNU) factions, while Norodom was
nominated by a number of councillors from the PDI Perjuangan
faction. The pair received a total of 23 of 43 votes.

Besides Ismet Iskandar and Norodom, five other pairs of
candidates contested the election.

Forty-five councillors attended the election but only 43 cast
votes, with the other two councillors abstaining.

Hundreds of police officers were deployed around the council
building to safeguard the proceedings, but were still unable to
prevent a clash between supporters of rival candidates.

The conflict was caused by a split in the PDI Perjuangan
faction between those councillors supporting the ticket with
Norodom as deputy regent and those supporting the ticket
containing Doddy Anshory as regent.

One car was damaged during the fracas but no injuries were
reported.

After the election, Ismet said he would continue with the
development programs of his predecessor.

Mas Iman Kusnandar, secretary of the election committee, said
the public had until March 5 to express their views and opinions
on the election of the new regent and deputy regent.

He said the new regent had to be installed in office before
March 22, when outgoing regent Agus Djunara ends his term.