Assembly to retain its power in presidential elections
Assembly to retain its power in presidential elections
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Firm in its first vote on the contentious issue of
presidential elections on Wednesday, the Golkar faction at the
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Annual Session finally
agreed to support the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI Perjuangan).
The stance means that the task of electing a president would
be relegated to the Assembly should presidential nominees fail to
collect a majority of votes through a direct public election
process.
"There has been a kind of agreement that the Assembly will
have a role in any second round of elections. (If a second round
were necessary) the Assembly would carry out the presidential
election," Pramono Anung, deputy secretary-general of PDI
Perjuangan, said on Wednesday.
The statement effectively dampened speculation that debate on
this issue would result in a deadlock.
Apart from the deal on the method of election, Pramono added
that the factions had also reached agreement on membership of the
Constitutional Court.
When asked for confirmation on the agreement, Golkar faction
chairman Fahmi Idris said that his faction had initially
disagreed with the idea of giving the Assembly power to elect the
president.
"But other factions, including PDI Perjuangan, want to bring
the second round to the Assembly. We understand that and will
assess it," Fahmi told The Jakarta Post.
He added that the factions had also agreed on the composition
and membership of the Constitutional Court.
In a related development, a coalition of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) calling for a new constitution, rejected the
current constitutional amendment process. They asserted that
deliberations had focused more on the interests of the elite than
those of the general public.
"The decision (on the amendment) will advantage the political
parties preparing for the 2004 general election," they said in a
statement.
Meanwhile, Golkar's Slamet Effendy Yusuf apologized for the
deal, saying that his faction hoped the presidential election
could have been decided in one ballot.
"Our reason for accepting this clause is that the number of
presidential nominees can be streamlined," he said.
He said that he hoped there would not be many presidential
nominees in the election so that a candidate would have a greater
chance of collecting more than half of the votes, therefore
eliminating the need for a second round.
"The presidential nominees must continually campaign to
collect more than half of the votes in the election. It is hoped
that in the first round there would only be several presidential
nominees," Slamet said, adding that the mechanism would
eventually lead to a dual-party system.
Previously, Golkar wanted a second direct election phase to be
conducted if a candidate failed to win a majority of votes and
strongly rejected interference by the Assembly.