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.