MORE PRESSURE ON SUKARNO

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31276, 24 January 1967, Page 13

MORE PRESSURE ON SUKARNO

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) DJAKARTA, January 23. The Indonesian Parliament convenes today for its first session of the New Year amid growing indications that President Sukarno’s days in office are numbered.

The Parliament is expected to launch the initial constitutional acts designed to remove President Sukarno as life-time President of Indonesia.

Its first tasks are to approve a bill increasing its membership by 108 members and to adopt a resolution calling Congress—the country’s highest authority—into special session by April at the latest, to consider President Sukarno’s fate.

The membership boost is expected to stack the congressional cards overwhelmingly against the President and in favour of Army General Suharto, current Indonesian “strong man.” The increased parliamentary membership will correspondingly increase the number of congressmen. Thus the Congress,' armed with a majority generally hostile to the President, is expected to review reportedly conclusive evidence linking Sukarno with the Communist coup attempt in 1965, and remove him from office. Anti-Sukarno student groups also are expected to

make the most of the parliamentary meeting by taking to the streets with demands that the President be ousted immediately. Legal Means In spite of the mounting pressure on General Suharto to take immediate steps to oust Sukarno from his now mostly nominal post, the general has given strong hints that he would prefer to see the President go by legal means. The new parliamentary and congressional membership is to include for the first time representatives of Indonesia’s anti-Communist and more anti-Sukarno student action fronts.