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INDONESIA-ELECTION
Indonesian dictator’s convicted murderer son to run for office
JAKARTA, July 20, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Indonesian dictator Suharto’s youngest
son — who was convicted of ordering the assassination of a supreme court
judge — will run for a seat in parliament, his political party said Friday.
Tommy Suharto, 56, wants to represent the eastern province of Papua, a
region annexed by his father in the late Sixties following a UN-backed
referendum widely criticised as a sham.
Papua, on the western half of New Guinea island, has since grappled with an
insurgency aimed at winning independence from Jakarta.
Suharto’s son will run in the April polls under his Berkarya Party, said a
senior party official, who added that Papuans themselves called for him to
run for office.
“That’s the request of the people there,” Badaruddin Andi Picunang told
AFP.
“Mr. Suharto (Tommy Suharto’s father) liberated Papua. Mr. Tommy loves
Papua and he wants to represent the people.”
Picunang dismissed suggestions that some in Papua are not fans of Tommy
Suharto or his late father’s annexation of the region.
“There will always be positive and negative views, but we’re just looking
at the positive,” he said.
Tommy Suharto, who had been known as a playboy with a taste for flashy
cars, served just four years of a 15-year prison term for hiring hitmen to
murder a judge who had sentenced him to jail for corruption. He was released
in 2006.
His political Party, formed in 2016, has at least one other member who is a
convicted murderer.
The late dictator’s six children allegedly amassed fortunes by enjoying
privileged access to lucrative business deals during Suharto’s three-decade
rule, which was marked by massive corruption. He was toppled in 1998 during
the Asian financial crisis.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1601 hrs