KALLA: ANYBODY FROM ANY ETHNIC GROUP HAS RIGHT TO LEAD

Jakarta, July 3 (ANTARA) - Vice President Jusuf Kalla said anybody from any ethnic group in Indonesia had the right to lead the nation based on his or her capability.

"We all have the same right to lead. What matters is our capability," the vice president said when he met with community leaders and Muslim clerics in Depok, West Java, on Friday.

He said no group (ethnicity) of the nation was better than the other groups. "They all have the same rights and the same opportunity," he said.

According to the vice president, the important thing was a person's capability. He stressed that all had to do their best to serve the nation with a common goal, namely to improve the people's welfare and prosperity.

"For this goal, we all have to unite. We have to maintain our relations as Muslims and as a nation," the vice president said.

Kalla, who is also a presidential aspirant of the Golkar Party in a presidential debate Thursday night said racist ideas were dangerous to the country because the nation's strength lay in its unity and diversity.

"Whoever of us leads this nation. Therefore, the racist idea which said that a man of a certain ethnicity in this country may not lead the nation is dangerous," Kalla said during the last round of the presidential debate.

The presidential debate on Thursday took the theme about the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI), democracy and regional autonomy issues.

According to Kalla the main strength of the nation lay in its unity and diversity. Therefore, there should not be an idea which confronted the issues of ethnicity, race and religion.

"Let us think clearly and should not look at things narrowly. The unity is our strength," Kalla, who hails from Makassar, South Sulawesi, said in a high tone.

Earlier, Andi Mallarangeng, an associate chairman of presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, said it was not yet time for people from South Sulawesi to become a president. ***1***