Anton Aliabbas, Jakarta – The chairperson of the People’s Representative Assembly (DPR), Akbar Tanjung, has said that there is no need to be concerned about the decision by the Constitutional Court which allows ex-members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) to become legislative candidates. However he also said that communism must be guarded against.

According to Tanjung, there is no need for people to worry about the Constitutional Court’s decision because ex-PKI members will only be able to become legislative candidates in the next 2009 general elections.

“I think that in the coming 2009 general elections, there won’t be any PKI members [left]. What there will only be their offspring’s. They are not PKI anymore”, Tanjung told journalists at the DPR building on Thursday February 26.

Tanjung went on to explain however, that indeed as an ideology, communism is currently working to reemerge on the national political stage. “Therefore it is important for use to remember to be on guard against communism”, he said.

According to Tanjung, the Golkar Party, of which he is the head, is still of the view that communists should still not be allowed to participate in political life. “The MPR decree(1) outlaws communist ideology. And so far, I consider that the [adverse] reactions to the Constitutional Court’s decision are [quite] natural”, he said. (asy)

Notes:

1. Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly (MPRS) Decree Number 25/1966 on the Dissolution of the Indonesian Communist Party and prohibitions on Marxist, Leninist and Communist Teachings. In August 2003, the annual session of the People’s Representative Assembly debated a motion to annul the decree. All of the major political parties rejected the proposal.

[Translated by James Balowski.]