ELECTIONS FOR INDONESIA

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27441, 30 August 1954, Page 12

ELECTIONS FOR INDONESIA

DOUBT ABOUT DATK OF POLL COMMUNISTS CLASH. WITH MOSLEMS . (From a Reuter Correspondent) NEW YORK, Observers feel there is no lita& hood that the first general election & Indonesia’s history will be held <* schedule—next January s—said a report from Jakarta published by the “New York Times” recently. Indeed, the report said, there fc widespread doubt in many circles in Indonesia' about when the elections will be held. Officials said that 45,000,000 were eligible to vote. Registration was odg; inally scheduled to be completed hy the end of May, but it was still fa progress and in some areas had Mt started. Transport problems posed ore of the major problems facing eledioi -officials. But the Indonesians were dieplaying considerable energy in working day and night to get the hup election machinery under w£y. Election officials said that they hri received the most co-operation/jrad the average peasant but that the “educated” groups often provided' ths most registration difficulty. “They like to show off their status by keeping ui

* waiting outside their, houses as muck j as one hour,” one official complained. a However, the report said, the difficulties might be overshadowed by the \ tense internal political situation'll Indonesia. Today there was a continue ” crystallisation of the struggle between Islamic and Communist forces in Jndonesia. d In the belief that the seculanttt public was not in accordance-Mib Islamic teaching and had been rer trayed to the Communists,, extsreaiM 4 Moslems had staged several rereKf e This militant movement sou«L overthrow the republic by viotjnc* r and replace it with a h lamic state. j At present the movement conducted g localised guerrilla wars in Northern, y Sumatra, Southern Borneo and South*. g ern Celebes and West-Central Jiyn 3 Each of these areas was strongly ■ lem. s In West Java, five election officially r already had been killed by Moslete t extremists while performing . their? B registration work. There was le< i among some Indonesian leaders that r t general election at this statfe might z lead to new tension and to the dto, r ruption of the Republic.