Jakarta – Comments by ex-president Suharto expressing doubt about whether Indonesia's June 7 elections will be free and fair show he does not believe in democracy, the deputy chairman of the election commission said Thursday.

"His political concept is based on authoritarianism. He does not believe in democracy," Adnan Buyung Nasution said on television.

In an interview published Wednesday by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, Suharto said he doubted the elections, the first since his downfall in May last year, would be fair. He said the increase in the number of political parties from three during his rule to 48 now would cause problems.

Nasution, who is also a human rights lawyer and a staunch critic of the former president, said Suharto's statement sounded as if he was urging people to boycott the elections. "He should refrain from making such a statement, ... just when we [the election commission] are lauching a drive to lure people's enthusiasm to vote," Nasution said.

He said the veteran leader was worried by the people regaining their political rights and freedom of expression. "He got used to the notion that everything should be on command, as a form of political regimentation," Nasution said.

Earlier Marzuki Darusman, head of the ruling Golkar party's parliamentary faction, said Suharto's doubts indicated that his regime was trying to make a political comeback.

"We should understand that it's a feedback from the old regime in its attempt to return to political life," Darusman was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying.

In the interview, the first with a foreign publication since his downfall, Suharto also blamed politicians and "hasty reforms" for fanning the flames of unrest and cited fears of a return to communism.

Darusman, also chairman of the national commission on human rights, said the former strongman's statement was "a criticism from a former president who still has problems with the Indonesian public.

"Golkar should move more quickly than the remnants of the old regime," he said. Suharto was Golkar's top patron while he was head of state. Darusman said Suharto's statement could be seen as a warning for the present government to do better that the previous one.

Suharto faces a probe into the alleged fortune accumulated during his 32 years in power – estimated by the US magazine Forbes to amount to at least four billion dollars. He has described this figure as "ridiculous" and challenged anyone to find accounts under his name in foreign banks.

Suharto was replaced by his protege B.J. Habibie, who has pledged to make the polls the most democratic and free in decades.