PDI-P members leave candidate decision up to Megawati

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 09/17/2007 2:46 PM  |  National

Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

The selection race for candidates in the upcoming Bali gubernatorial election ended with an anticlimax Saturday for the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

At the nomination meeting, representatives of the party's branches on the island decided to leave the choice for the Bali gubernatorial candidate up to the party's leader, Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Sony Keraf, the party's regional coordinator for Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara, said that all the participants at the meeting in Denpasar's Nikki Hotel agreed not to endorse a candidate to avoid internal friction in the largest political party in the province.

""We think the solidity of the party is the most important thing. After all, the party's headquarters will also consider all the strengths and flaws of each hopeful,"" he told reporters.

A selection mechanism is usually gone through to identify the most popular hopeful to be recommended by the PDI-P Bali to the party's central board.

As the PDI-P Bali failed to name a candidate, the party plans to conduct at least two surveys to assess the popularity and the acceptability of each hopeful.

""We are looking for the candidate with the greatest chance of winning. He will be elected not only by the members of the party, but also by the Balinese people in general,"" Keraf said.

A member of the party's campaign team, Nyoman Damantara, said that despite no recommendation being issued by the PDI-P Bali, most of the party members had expressed the view that the candidacy should go to a party member rather than a non-member.

""Six (out of nine) PDI-P district chapters in the province want a home-grown candidate,"" he said.

Jembrana Regent Gede Winasa, who heads the PDI-P chapter in Jembrana, and Denpasar Mayor A. Puspayoga are two PDI-P politicians nominated for the gubernatorial candidacy.

Former Bali Police chief Comr. Gen. I Mangku Pastika and Regional Representatives Council member I Wayan Sudirta are the strongest non-party hopefuls who have applied for the party's candidacy.

The PDI-P Jembrana and Denpasar branches explicitly stated their support for Winasa and Puspayoga, respectively, during the closed-door meeting.

Pastika, who attended the meeting, said that he applauded the PDI-P Bali's decision to let party headquarters pick the best candidate.

""It shows the maturity of the party in politics. It is very solid,"" he said.

He said he was confident he would win the selection race despite opposition among party members in the province towards non-party candidates.

""It is a normal thing. But the decision is in the hands of the leaders at PDI-P headquarters. The aspirations of the people will have to be considered by the party as they are the voters,"" he said.

Sudirta also expressed confidence he would be nominated for the candidacy on the sidelines of the meeting, boasting that he had already secured the support of a number of PDI-P politicians in Jakarta.

He predicted that the outcome of the nomination would be a package made up of hopefuls drawn from the ranks of party and non-party members.

A survey by the Jakarta-based Institute for Social and Economic Research, Education and Information (LP3ES), one of the nation's best-known polling agencies, found that I Wayan Sudirta enjoyed the most public support.

The survey also found that a Wayan Sudirta-Puspayoga ticket would be the most popular, with 44 percent support, ahead of a Mangku Pastika-Agus Suradnyana ticket on 17 percent and a Gede Winasa-IGN Alit Kelakan ticket on 8.9 percent.

Sony Keraf refused to name the polling agency that would undertake the planned surveys, but stressed that the agency would need to be independent and that the results would be made public.

When asked about his chances and the latest LP3ES survey findings, Pastika said he had no worries at all.

""It's party headquarters that decides,"" he repeated.

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