to supervise government purchases exceeding 500 Million Rupiahs. Chairman of Golkar During the 1983 Golkar National Conference, which took place from 20 October until 25 October 1983, Sudharmono was elected as the Chairman of Golkar. His election was unexpected. He was accompanied by Sarwono Kusumaatmadja as secretary general. As Chairman of Golkar, Sudharmono reformed some of the inner workings of the party. He did this by pushing for further transparency within the party organization, created job descriptions for party officials, divided the tasks of party officials, and created the post of field coordinator. Sudharmono also conducted many inspection tours of Golkar branches at the local level to see the implementation and consolidation of Golkar policies. Sudharmono consolidated Golkars position ahead of the 1987 Indonesian legislative election, focusing its efforts to secure a majority of the popular vote in the devoutly Islamic province of Aceh, which was the only province apart from Jakarta where Golkar had failed to do so in 1982. Golkar made use of two civil servants to run its financial campaign in Aceh, while also using Aceh governor Ibrahim Hasan, an economist who managed to unite the traditional and modern aspirations of the Acehnese people, to their advantage, by making him travel all around the province telling people that a Golkar victory would bring about material development without sacrificing traditional values. Sudharmono's leadership, as well as the weakness of the Islamic opposition, the United Development Party, following the withdrawal of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) from the party, led to Golkar increasing its majority from 242 seats to 299 seats and from 64.34% to 73.11% of the vote. Golkar also achieved its aim in Aceh, and for the first time won an absolute majority of the vote in Jakarta and every other province of Indonesia. Vice Presidency Nomination As the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) convened for its 1988 General Session, it was widely believed by many that the aging Suharto would be elected to his fifth and last term as president. As such, the office of Vice Presidenct became a crucial position. Suharto then created a nine person commission to select a name for the vice presidency. Figures in the commission included Akbar Tandjung and Sarwono Kusumaatmadja. Though as 1988 began, Suharto began to show signs that he wanted Sudharmono to become his vice president, although Suharto never mentioned Sudharmono by name. However, the possibility of Sudharmono becoming vice