A step forward

Our national political life has gone a step forward with the adoption of a draft law concerning the composition of the House of Representatives and People's Consultative Assembly (DPR/MPR) in a plenary House session last Thursday. The gist of the draft bill involves the number of elected members in the House of Representatives, which is expanded from 400 to 425. At the same time the number of members appointed from among the Armed Forces (ABRI) is reduced from 100 to 75. With this change, the three political organizations -- the United Development Party, Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party -- get the chance to increase the number of seats they hold in the legislature in the 1997 general elections.

The question is what this reduction in the number of appointed members from the Armed Forces will mean and what the implications of it will be on the functioning of the House of Representatives.

We do not know whether, with its position as a leader which gives guidance while remaining in the background, the ABRI faction will continue to be able to function as a dynamic factor with ever increasing quality. It is not impossible that a reduction in numbers will lead to a lessening in quality.

To anticipate such a possibility, it is advisable for the Armed Forces to select personnel of good quality to become its legislators, so that ABRI may effectively carry out its social and political functions in the context of Pancasila Democracy.

-- Suara Karya, Jakarta