Akbar confident of his leadership

JAKARTA: House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung said on Friday that a petition over his suspension submitted by more than 100 legislators would not proceed for further discussion after the House's Steering Committee (Bamus) failed to make any decision about his fate on Thursday.

The committee handed over the case to the House's leaders.

"I think that kind of a petition cannot be included on the House's meeting agenda because the legislators' right of interpellation should be directed only toward the government, not the House's leaders.

"Besides, there has been no precedent of it (the House deliberating on a proposal to suspend its speaker)," Akbar, who is also the Golkar Party chairman, told the journalists at his office.

More than 100 legislators from various factions, including the Golkar faction, signed a petition demanding Akbar be suspended from the House after he was sentenced to three years jail for corruption.

Akbar has not been jailed pending the outcome of an appeal. -- JP