Three major factions nominate Sutiyoso, PAN and PKB do not

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Three major factions and one minor faction in the Jakarta City Council on Friday officially nominated incumbent Governor Sutiyoso as their main gubernatorial candidate to be elected on Sept. 11 for the 2002-2007 term.

Sutiyoso was nominated by factions of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), which has 30 of the 85 seats, the United Development Party (PPP) with 12 seats, Golkar Party with 8 seats and the Justice and Unity Party (PKP) with 1 seat.

The Military and Police (TNI-Polri) Faction did not submit its candidate yet to the Election Committee, but the faction announced that five gubernatorial candidates, including Sutiyoso and five vice gubernatorial candidates, passed its selection process.

Nine factions submitted two pairs of candidates while the Justice Party (PK) faction submitted only one pair.

The candidate list was submitted to the Election Committee at a meeting chaired by the committee chairman Muhammad Suwardi, who later handed it over to City Council Chairman Edy Waluyo for further processing.

The PDI Perjuangan faction and Golkar faction nominated Fauzi Bowo as a vice governor candidate who will become Sutiyoso's partner while the PPP faction nominated the chairman of the party's Jakarta chapter Chudlary Syafi'i to become Sutiyoso's partner.

The chairman of PDI Perjuangan's Jakarta chapter Tarmidi Suhardjo and the National Mandate Party (PAN) Secretary General Abdillah Toha were another pair of candidates nominated by both the PDI Perjuangan and PAN factions.

Chudlary said his faction was deceived by the PDI Perjuangan as it had violated an agreement between the two that Sutiyoso and himself would become their candidates.

Although Sutiyoso was officially nominated by four factions, there was no guarantee that he would be the next city governor as councillors from PDI Perjuangan and PPP factions were divided over his nomination. A number of them have stated that they intended to vote for the pair of Tarmidi and Toha.

Chairman of the PDI Perjuangan faction Agung Imam Soemanto, however, said there was no such agreement and his faction had the right to decide on each pair of candidates.

"We only discussed the possibilities, but we did not reach an agreement," Agung said.

Fauzi, who registered as the gubernatorial candidate and was nominated by PAN, previously stressed that he would go ahead with his gubernatorial bid and rejected an offer to become a vice gubernatorial candidate. But, he changed his mind when he received an offer from Golkar and PDI Perjuangan.

Only 5 factions besides PAN did not include Sutiyoso as a candidate, most notably the National Awakening Party (PKB).