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.