Army urges Gus Dur not to disband DPR
Army urges Gus Dur not to disband DPR
JAKARTA (JP): Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto
warned President Abdurrahman Wahid on Wednesday not to disband
the House of Representatives, which over past months has been at
loggerheads with the embattled President.
"We ask him not to do it since it is against democracy,"
Endriartono said at Army headquarters here.
"Issuing a decree (to disband the House) will only worsen the
already poor relationship between the President and the House,"
he added.
Endriartono was responding to speculation which has spread
since the weekend, claiming that Abdurrahman plans to dissolve
the House.
He was quick to add, however, that the Army would remain loyal
to the President and that the military would not join the
President's rivals in calling for his resignation.
"We have no right to do that," Endriartono said.
Abdurrahman flatly denied later in the day that he had any
intention of dissolving the House.
"There is no such thing ... that decree is only according to
what people say and if you believe it then it's your own fault,"
Abdurrahman said at Bina Graha presidential office.
Reports have emerged that, during a breakfast meeting with
military brass on Saturday, the President proposed he would
dissolve the House through a presidential decree.
The idea, however, was immediately rejected by Endriartono,
who was present at the meeting along with Navy Chief of Staff
Adm. Indroko Sastrowiryono and Air Force Chief of Staff Marshal
Hanafie Asnan.
Abdurrahman also charged earlier on Wednesday that some
legislators were trying to make the House superior to the
executive branch of government and vowed to fight them.
"The current wish of some people to elevate the House above
the executive is a wish that should be fought against because it
violates the Constitution," he told a seminar organized by the
National Resilience Institute.
"If the president allows this to take place, then he has acted
against the Constitution and there is nothing else to do for him
but to resign," Abdurrahman continued.
Rumors that the President would dissolve the House also
triggered a rebuke from House Speaker Akbar Tandjung on
Wednesday.
He said the House would immediately call on the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) to convene a special session to
impeach the President if the latter issued such a decree.
"It will be an authoritarian and unconstitutional action if
the President issues a decree to dissolve the legislature. We,
therefore, will resist," he said.
He said that the Constitution does not allow the president to
dissolve the legislative body and the Assembly could use such an
action to justify the convening of a special session to impeach
the president.
"According to the Constitution, the president cannot dissolve
the House, and vice versa, because of their equal position in the
state system," he said.
Many have suggested that rumors of Abdurrahman's plan to
dissolve the House are only a tactic being used by the President
for negotiation leverage.
The outlook of Abdurrahman's political survival has become
increasingly bleak following the House's issuance of a second
memorandum of censure against him on April 30.
The President has until the end of this month to respond to
the second censure.
Separately, constitutional law expert Harun Al Rasyid said
that, while he does not personally agree with the need to issue
such a decree, theoretically the president has the authority to
do so.
He argued that, apart from powers explicitly stipulated in the
1945 Constitution and other laws, the president also has the
unwritten prerogative to act in situations which are deemed as an
emergency, such as during the time of first president Sukarno.
However, Harun said that the current situation could not be
deemed an emergency that would warrant the issuance of such a
decree.
Many have argued that the precedent for such a decree is a
1959 decree issued by Sukarno which at the time dissolved the
constituent assembly. (02/byg/rms)