WIRANTO CALLS ON ALL PARTIES TO AVOID "NEGATIVE" CAMPAIGNING

Bekasi, Indonesia, Feb 17 (ANTARA)- People's Conscience (Hanura) Party leader Wiranto called on all parties taking part in the upcoming general elections to avoid staging "negative" campaigns so that the polls would be "of good quality."

"I am against campaigns that are marked by mutual recriminations and mud-slinging," Wiranto told the press after opening a coordinative meeting of Hanura branches from across West Java here on Tuesday.

Some 38 political parties and six local parties in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) province will take part in a legislative election on April 9, followed by a presidential race in July 2009.

He said all people wanted the 2009 general elections to be carried out in a fair, just and respectable way.

"If all electoral processes are implemented in elegant ways and according to the existing rules, the polls will go on record as being of good quality and yielding respectable results," he said.

"But if the campaigns are negative and full of mutual recriminations and verbal attacks, unethical practices, rule violations, then it will be really regrettable," he said.

Asked about his plan to join this year's presidential race, Wirato confirmed he had such a plan, adding it was based on his party's decision which he could not refuse.

Previously, when speaking in Palembang, capital of South Sumatra province last January, Wiranto among other things said Indonesia needed a radical breakthrough in its development strategy.

"What the nation now needs is a shock therapy," Wiranto, a retired general, said here on Sunday.

There would never be change if the nation continued to apply its present decevelopment strategies, he added.***