Jakarta – The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) will withdraw its support of Governor Sutiyoso if he continues to conduct wide-scale evictions in the city.
"If Sutiyoso does not stop these excessive evictions we [PDI Perjuangan central board] will order our faction in the City Council to reject his accountability speech," said the party's central board executive Roy BB Janis, as quoted by Antara as saying, on Saturday.
Roy said that the evictions have made the lives of thousands of people miserable, particularly as they face the onset of the rainy season and the Muslim fasting month.
PDI Perjuangan chairman Megawati Soekarnoputri threw her weight behind Sutiyoso in the gubernatorial elections in September last year. Megawati's support of Sutiyoso was owed to his alleged ability to secure capital for next year's general elections.
The chairwoman of the party's Jakarta chapter, Sumiyati Soekarno, said earlier that the impact of the evictions could see the party standing to lose around 80,000 votes.
Roy also criticized the poor performance of Sutiyoso's administration in managing the 2003 Rp 11.5 trillion (US$1.35 billion) city budget. He said that the budget, which is the largest among other regions, should have been directed at improving social welfare. The administration has only spent around 25 percent of the city budget in the first semester.
Councillor Mardjuan Bakri from the National Mandate Party (PAN) took a different stance, saying that there had not been any problems with the methods used to evict residents so far.
"The evictions have been conducted in line with city regulations," the member of the City Council commission A on governmental institutions told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. The commission plans to summon officers from the city's five municipalities and the public order agency to seek clarification due to the mounting public criticism over the violence sparked by the evictions.
Mardjuan said that he had contacted West Jakarta Mayor Sarimun Hadisaputra to gather information relating to evictions carried out within the municipality.
"He [Sarimun] said that his office had warned the illegal squatters three times before commencing the evictions," he said. Several mass-evictions in the city have resulted in violence between residents and public order officers, injuring dozens from both sides. The eviction of residents in Cengkareng, West Jakarta resulted in a man being killed and a teenage girl, sexually abused.