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Former vice president Hamzah Haz dies at 84
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Former vice president Hamzah Haz (Courtesy of Youtube/Sekretariat Presiden)
H
amzah Haz, the country’s ninth vice president and a prominent member of the United Development Party (PPP), died in Jakarta on Wednesday morning. He was 84.
Hamzah, who served under the presidency of Megawati Soekarnoputri from 2001 to 2004, died of old age at his home in Matraman, East Jakarta, according to PPP secretary-general Arwani Thomafi. He was laid to rest at his family cemetery in Bogor, West Java, on the same day.
Prior to assuming the vice presidency, Hamzah served as investment minister under president Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie and as coordinating minister for social welfare during the presidency of Abdurahman “Gus Dur” Wahid.
Hamzah also made an unsuccessful bid for president in the 2004 election.
Born in Ketapang, West Kalimantan, in 1940, Hamzah started his career as a journalist at a local newspaper in the province’s capital Pontianak shortly after he finished high school in 1961.
He continued his education at the faculty of economics at Tanjungpura University, and he later entered politics by chairing the West Kalimantan branch of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), now the country’s biggest Muslim organization, which at the time was a political party.
In 1973, NU fused with three other Islam-based parties to form the PPP and Hamzah was appointed to represent the newly established party in the House of Representatives. NU decided in 1984 to quit what it calls practical politics.
