A step forward

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