Agencies in Jakarta – The minority Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), already hit by a damaging split, may cancel election campaigning in the second city of Surabaya after a brawl yesterday between rival supporters.
A party rally was abandoned after the stage was destroyed in fighting between followers of the government-backed PDI faction, led by Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Suryadi, and supporters of ousted leader Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Bachtiar Balukh, head of the official PDI faction in the city, said: "If the situation continues like this we will have to cancel campaigning in Surabaya."
It was the first major incident in an otherwise peaceful start to the campaign for local and national elections, which goes on until May 23.
The polls are being held on May 29.
The Christian-National PDI, the ruling Golkar and the Muslim-oriented United Development Party (PPP) are the only three parties legally permitted to contest the poll for the 425 elected seats in the House of Representatives. The other 75 seats are reserved for the military, which does not vote. The three parties are competing for nearly 125 million potential votes. They have agreed to campaign each day in separate areas of the country, a sprawling archipelago stretching 5,000 kilometres.
The official Antara news agency said the PDI rally in Surabaya turned into a "massive brawl" after a Megawati supporter seized a microphone on the stage.
The supporter shouted "Long live Megawati" before being restrained by party security officials.
Witnesses said stones were thrown at the stage, causing significant damage, before security forces arrived and dispersed the crowd.
Ms Megawati has called on her supporters to stay away from the election campaign, which began on Sunday, in a bid to prevent violence. The PDI has been split since government-backed party rebels, led by former leader Mr Suryadi, ousted Ms Megawati as party head in June last year.
The PDI in Surabaya continued to operate with two rival party branches.
Troops and riot police blocked thousands of PPP supporters from parading illegally on major Jakarta roads yesterday. Efforts by PPP supporters to stage motorcycle and car parades caused traffic chaos in the teeming capital, but there were no reports of violence or arrests.
PPP chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum addressed a rally in Pasuruan, East Java, which party officials said was attended by more than 100,000 people.
However, Lieutenant-Colonel Syaiful Bakrie, head of Pasuruan police, estimated about 50,000 people had attended the event.
"There were no problems at the rally, everything was safe," he said.
Don't take part in campaign, Mega tells supporters
Media Indonesia - 28 April, 1997 (Abridged from Tapol)
[Megawati's 'order of the day' last week seems to have been misinterpreted as being an instruction to boycott the election. This is not - or not yet - the case, according to our interpretation of her words. TAPOL]
On 27 April, the day on which election campaigning is officially permitted to start, Megawati Sukarnoputri held a meeting at her home with about two hundred of her supporters. She reiterated her 'order of the day' issued last week in which she said that the PDI which she leads would not take part in the election campaign, a decision that had been taken after its list of candidates was rejected some months ago.
'PDI members will not take part in the 1997 election campaign,' she told her supporters. She told the AFP that this does not mean that her party had stopped conducting political activities.
She said the scores of her supporters had come to her home to hear exactly what she meant by her order of the day last week.
Another thing she told them was that they should keep safely their voting cards without saying what they should do with the cards.
Many of her supporters have said that they will in fact refrain from voting.