Amien, Matori to lead team on Habibie's speech
Amien, Matori to lead team on Habibie's speech
JAKARTA (JP): Amien Rais, the speaker of the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR), said on Friday that he and Deputy
Speaker Matori Abdul Djalil would lead the Assembly commission
entrusted to evaluate President B.J. Habibie's accountability
speech.
"Matori and I have been entrusted by the Assembly to lead the
MPR commission to deliberate the President's accountability," he
said when receiving a 15-member delegation of the Alumni
Association of the Bandung Institute of Technology on Friday.
The delegation lodged a petition with Amien, demanding the
Assembly to not elect Habibie in the Oct. 20 presidential
election.
It also urged the Assembly to pay serious attention to
criticisms sparked by the accountability speech.
A delegation of the August 17 University, which met with Amien
on Friday, also demanded the Assembly not support Habibie.
Amien said his commission would deliberate the accountability
speech before it is brought to a plenary Assembly meeting.
When asked his response to the criticism against the
accountability speech, Amien pledged to accommodate the various
public response and evaluate it seriously in the commission. When
asked for his personal comment on it, Amien conceded that the
speech was full of rhetoric.
"I'm surprised that in all the paragraphs in the speech, there
was no statement that he (Habibie) ever made a mistake or he felt
bad about anything. It is very strange. The most ironic thing is
that he said he had worked hard to investigate the alleged
corruption committed by former president Soeharto and his cronies
but he did not realize that he was one of Soeharto's cronies," he
said, citing that in certain fields, Habibie's government was
really a continuation of the former New Order regime.
Amien gave signals that the Assembly might turn down Habibie's
accountability speech if the public protests continue.
"There's a possibility the Assembly will reject the
controversial speech, depending on the commission's evaluation
and reaction from people," he said.
"Habibie's chance to win the presidential election will drop
to the lowest level if the accountability speech is turned down.
But this does not mean that the Golkar Party is barred from
nominating him. Despite a possible rejection of the speech,
Golkar has a right to determine whether to nominate him.
"To me, the problem is will Golkar go ahead with Habibie's
nomination if the accountability speech is rejected by the
Assembly. All this will depend on Golkar itself," he said.
(rms/05)