ABRI gets seats in the House

ABRI gets seats in the House

JAKARTA (JP): New legislation for the June general election
was finally agreed to on Wednesday and will be enacted at the
plenary session of the House of Representatives (DPR) on
Thursday.

The breakthrough came after the four factions agreed to
restrict the Armed Forces (ABRI) to 38 unelected seats in the new
500-member DPR.

The Armed Forces currently receive 75 unelected seats in the
DPR.

During the long-running debate, the United Development Party
(PPP) faction fought to limit the military to 15 seats, a stance
strongly opposed by the ABRI and Golkar factions.

A second major hurdle to the enactment of the political bills
was removed on Wednesday when faction leaders agreed to conduct
the June 7 election at the provincial level, instead of at a
regency level, as the majority Golkar faction desired.

Faction leaders attending a closed lobbying session held to
break up the impasse over the two issues denied the agreement had
resulted from "political horse trading" among them.

"No parties win or lose. It's the nation that wins," said
Golkar Chairman Akbar Tandjung, who is also the minister/state
secretary, after emerging from the closed door session.

PPP House faction chairman Zarkasih Nur later told a news
conference that his party "had done its best" given the limited
leeway it had to work in. He said the two issues "are tied in a
package".

Zarkasih said that ABRI would have backed Golkar's demand for
a vote on the issues if it had pressed ahead with its agenda. He
pointed out that the PPP and the United Development Party (PDI)
could not hope to win a vote against the two powerful factions.

"So rather than losing on two fronts, PPP agreed to the motion
(on military seats)," he said.

Zarkasih said the party was basically "dissatisfied" with the
results, but conceded that they must accept the decision.

ABRI Commander Gen. Wiranto appeared relieved by the decision.

"It (the new seat allocation) is a drastic cut," he told
journalists after the lobbying session.

Wiranto, who is also the minister of defense and security,
said 38 was the minimum number of seats with which the military
felt it needed to function effectively in the legislature.

Wednesday's agreement demonstrated the military's strong
political clout in the country's politics. One day earlier,
ABRI's Chief of Territorial Affairs Lt. Gen. Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono went on the record to say that 38 was the minimum
number of seats the military required.

The military also agreed to accept a sharp cut in the number
of seats it is awarded in the country's provincial and regency
level legislatures to 10 percent of the seats in each assembly.

Minister of Home Affairs Syarwan Hamid, his secretary-general
Feisal Tamin, government expert, Ryaas Rasyid, who is also
director general for regional autonomy, PPP Chairman Hamzah Haz,
Golkar executives Slamet Effendy Yusuf and Aminullah Ibrahim, and
the ABRI House faction leaders Hari Sabarno, Achmad Rustandi and
Budi Harsono also attended Wednesday's lobbying session, which
was a continuation of a marathon session which ran from Tuesday
into the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The PDI was represented by Secretary-General Buttu Hutapea and
Y.B. Wiyanjono. House Special Committee chairman Abu Hasan Sazili
was also present.

Legislators agreed at a later session of the special committee
to work overtime on Wednesday to make the Jan. 28 deadline, the
time it had been allotted to endorse the political bills.

Electoral district

Commenting on the consensus that the polling and ballot
counting would be conducted at the provincial level, PPP faction
chairman Zarkasih and Wiyanjono of the PDI -- who's parties both
fought for that system -- said they were satisfied.

The outcome is unlike the proportional representation voting
system proposed by Golkar, whereby the voting was to be conducted
at the regency level, but the agreement was sort of a combination
of the two systems, as Wiyanjono described it.

"District aspirations" were addressed in the agreed voting
system, he said.

Unlike the present voting system in which a political party's
central board in Jakarta has the ultimate power to determine its
legislative candidates, the new laws will require candidates to
be endorsed by the party at regency level.

In the past, candidates were often unknown in their assigned
constituency.

The seats for each party will be determined by the number of
votes gained at the provincial level, but the candidates can only
become House members if their party wins in the regency where
they were nominated.

Residual votes will be distributed at the provincial level for
the remaining seats, and then the party's central leaders can
determine who will take these seats.

To ensure a balance of representations between the islands of
Java and Bali -- where over 60 percent of the country's
population lives -- and the outer islands, the factions also
agreed "in principle", that each regency will have a minimum of
one representative. (aan)