PDI-P threaten to boycott race

Dicky Christianto and Erwida Maulia ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 04/22/2009 12:34 PM  |  Headlines

The so-called Teuku Umar Block, led by former president Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), is considering not contesting the upcoming presidential elections, not out of fear of being defeated, but because of what they call the systematic and massive manipulation of the recent legislative elections.

So far the PDI-P ranks third in the ongoing national tallies.

After accompanying Megawati in receiving Chairman of the Greater Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) Prabowo Subianto on Tuesday, PDI-P Secretary-General Pramono Anung Wibowo said that the numerous election problems, namely voter list fraud, IT problems and slow vote counting were key contributors to the camp's decision not to nominate a presidential candidate.

"Several signatories of the agreement share similar thoughts that as long as the voter list problem is not settled completely, it will be useless to contest the presidential race because the voter list manipulation strongly benefits a certain *other* block," he said as quoted by Kompas.com.

Besides Megawati, former president Abdurrahman Gus Dur Wahid, Prabowo, as well as chairpersons and senior figures from 16 other parties are signatories to the agreement and are threatening to not sign the results of the legislative polls.

Pramono stressed the move was aimed not at boycotting the presidential race but at giving political warning to the importance of free and fair elections and the PDI-P would certainly nominate its candidate if the problems were settled comprehensively.

The block has set a deadline of May 9 to settle the problems.

Unlike the PDI-P, the Golkar Party expects to win around 16 percent of votes from the legislative elections, enough to realistically seek a coalition with President SBY's Democratic Party, which is expected to win some 20 percent of the vote.

Cahyo Kumolo, head of the PDI-P's election winning team and PDI-P Deputy Chairman Maruar Sirait said Megawati has never ordered party members to boycott the legislative polls and said the party was still in a position to contend in the presidential election.

"What happen is that we are filing reports containing misappropriations conducted during the legislative elections to the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu). A legal supporting team has been organized especially for this matter." he said.

Responding emotionally to what he perceived as a PDI-P boycott threat, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the political elites and candidates to show political maturity in dealing with the election violations.

"It is hurt to be accused of cheating when we've never done that and have not even the slightest intention to do so. I also want all the problems regarding the voter lists to be settled soon. Be careful; don't be too harsh with the cheating allegations."

Yudhoyono said he was, too, engrossed with the troubled voter list, adding he had ordered Home Affairs Minister Mardiyanto to urge the General Elections Commission to fix the lists. (hdt)

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Grosoo (not verified) — Wed, 04/29/2009 - 1:31pm

a political party shall reflects an organized various individuals sharing the same mission n vision of certain idealism, not family members who control everything and benefits only the few relatives. Pity but better know now than latter.

Readernew (not verified) — Wed, 04/29/2009 - 9:19am

Well, at least then we get no childish, immature housewife as president again. Let's see the positive aspect!

Ed (not verified) — Sun, 04/26/2009 - 7:59am

If these parties really do the boycott because of KPU's lame work in compiling the voter list, they should've also refused to join the legislative election, because before that, they would've known about this problem. Yet, they only threaten to boycott after the legislative election results are out. They don't actually care about the voter list, they just know that they have been defeated, and instead of accepting the reality, they choose to childishly accuse the winner of cheating. It's ok if they would boycott the presidential election, at least we know we won't have such an immature president.

PT (not verified) — Thu, 04/23/2009 - 5:25am

The real problem there is no demographer among the KPU's member. Then problem of DPT appeared and giving political parties to comment.

David, Jakarta (not verified) — Wed, 04/22/2009 - 1:07pm

I'm afraid that Ibu Megawati will simply damage her own reputation by being such a petulant bad loser once again. Back in 2004 she did herself no favours by snubbing SBY after she lost the presidential election. Sure there were irregularities in voter registration and all such irregularities need to be investigated and measures taken to ensure they cannot happen again. But does she seriously suggest that this was the reason PDI-P came in third place?

Chris H (not verified) — Wed, 04/22/2009 - 1:05pm

Megawati should do now, what she should have done so many years ago.

Just stay home, knit some sweaters for her grandchildren and watch politicians at work on TV, from the comfort of her overpriced chair.

A good example of a poor loser.
Nowhere near qualitified enough to run such a big country, which its huge economy and many real problems.

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