Amien Rais' legitimacy

Amien Rais' legitimacy

From Merdeka

After returning from foreign visits (to the U.S. and Germany), Amien Rais made a surprising gesture that he would form a Council of People's Mandate and on May 20 this council would "go public". There were various comments and reactions to Amien Rais' statement as far as the council was concerned.

Irsyad Sudiro, chairman of the Golkar's faction, commented that Amien Rais did not know much about the House's recent activities (Merdeka, May 14). Sudiro added that Amien could not speak on behalf of the people because he was never elected in the general election, and therefore he did not have the legitimacy to do so.

This may or may not be true. The House members, who have legitimacy as people's representatives, might even be worse, because they cannot not express the people's aspirations. It is still fresh in my mind that when state-owned telecommunications company Telkom increased its tariffs, some House members commented that they were completely bewildered because Telkom had not consulted House beforehand. What then are the activities of the House?

To the best of my knowledge, although Amien Rais has never acted on behalf of the people, it should be noted that he was elected chairman of the Muhammadiyah, which has a following of about 28 million, by a vast majority of its members at its congress. This large support from Muhammadiyah members was enough to make Amien Rais consider how much legitimacy he had.

DARDIRI

Bekasi, West Java