A tough choice for TNI?

Imanuddin, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) closed its Annual Session on Aug. 11 with an "outstanding and historic" recommendation that the military and the police give up their nonelected seats in the legislature in 2004.

According to this decision, military and police personnel, who have over the past three decades enjoyed allocated seats in the legislature without having to contest the general elections, will be able to vote and will be required to leave the service should they wish to enter politics.

The TNI's role on the political stage has a long history. On Oct. 17, 1952, the Army intervened in national politics and demanded that then president Sukarno dissolve the provisional assembly (MPRS).

On July 5, 1959, then Army chief Gen. Abdul Harris Nasution forced president Sukarno to issue a decree reinstating the 1945 Constitution.

That decree nullified all of the constitutional amendments effected by a constituent assembly. In fact, the assembly was the result of the country's first democratic election in 1955.

General Nasution then formulated the TNI's political role, popularly known as the TNI's dual function (dwifungsi). This dual function was maintained and became even more firmly entrenched during the New Order administration of president Soeharto.

There were several important decisions made by the Assembly during the session, yet the one putting an end to the military and the police's involvement in day-to-day politics was by far its most important one.

But the Assembly's courageous decision was not made overnight, as the legislators had been engaged in a tug-of-war before reaching a "compromise" on a face-saving exit for the military and the police from politics.

Pressure from Cilangkap, the Indonesian Military (TNI)'s headquarters in East Jakarta, began in June when then TNI chief Adm. Widodo A.S. issued a statement on June 17, or one day before he handed over his command to Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, saying TNI wanted to remain in the legislature and have its voting rights delayed until 2009.

The statement was indeed controversial, made as it was by an officer about to vacate his post and during deliberation of the bill on general elections -- submitted by the government in May to the House of Representatives (DPR), and proposing restoring the right of members of the TNI, along with the National Police, to vote in the 2004 elections.

Widodo argued that the proposed bill would force the TNI/Police to leave the legislature in 2004, which contradicted an MPR decree allowing it to stay in the country's highest legislative body until 2009.

Widodo was referring to Assembly Decree No. VII/2000, which granted seats in the Assembly to the TNI/National Police until 2009, while also stipulating that members of the military and police would have no voting rights and no right to contest elections until that date. The decree also regulates that both forces should remain neutral and stay out of politics.

The bill on general elections itself is controversial, as it stipulates that members of the TNI and the National Police can be elected to the Regional Representative Council (DPD), provided they obtain the permission of their superiors.

The DPD is a new institution, which was proposed by the elections bill and whose existence was approved by the recently completed MPR session. According to the amended Constitution, the Assembly will consist of House members and DPD members, all of whom will be elected in a general election.

More pressure to keep the military in the legislature came from Widodo's successor, Gen. Endriartono, who proposed that the nation return to the original 1945 Constitution if deliberations on the latest round of amendments became deadlocked.

Endriartono's statement was echoed by Assembly Deputy Speaker Lt. Gen. Agus Widjojo of the TNI/Police faction on the sixth day of the Annual Session.

Agus' statement contradicted an earlier one by the chairman of the TNI/Police faction in the House, Maj. Gen. Slamet Supriyadi, who said on Aug. 5 that the military and police were prepared to abandon politics.

"We have wholeheartedly decided to leave the Assembly. We ask for your support and blessing in doing so," Slamet said.

Yet the battle over whether to retain or cancel the nonelected seats of the TNI/Police in the legislature was not fought only in the Assembly building.

A senior legislator and military officer said debates and negotiations outside the legislative building helped the MPR reach the decision to recommend that the military and the police give up their allocated seats.

Because only a few thousand protesters showed up during the session, intensive meetings and negotiations between Cilangkap and a number of social and religious organizations were the important and triggering factor leading to the Assembly's decision on the TNI.

With the TNI leaving the MPR, future representative bodies will me made up entirely of elected members -- a decision that in the end reflected a good though stormy "collaboration" between the outgoing MPR, a legacy of the past, and the public, represented by various social and mass organizations.