Assembly upbeat on presidential inauguration

Assembly upbeat on presidential inauguration

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Some changes have been made to the plenary session of People's
Consultative Assembly on Wednesday, during which Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla will be inaugurated as the president
and vice president respectively.

Unlike presidential inaugurations in the past, which saw the
president and vice president repeating the words of the chief
justice, Susilo and Kalla will read their oaths themselves.

According to the original plan, Susilo would have delivered
his first speech after taking the oath. However, Assembly leaders
agreed on Tuesday to drop this part.

"We have agreed that the Assembly will only witness the
swearing-in of the president. Since the president was elected
directly by the people, he will address the nation, not the
Assembly," Assembly Speaker Hidayat Nur Wahid told the press on
Tuesday.

Hidayat, however, said the Assembly would allow the new
president to deliver a speech if he wished to.

The Assembly members changed tack on Tuesday about whether the
law-making body would issue a decree formalizing the inauguration
of the president and vice president as stipulated in Article 74
of the Assembly's standing orders.

But after a consultation meeting with faction leaders, the
proposal was scrapped on the grounds that the Assembly did not
elect the president and vice president, as was the case in the
past.

The Assembly finally agreed only to refer to Article 82 of the
standing orders on the mechanism for the presidential
inauguration. This says that the General Elections Commission
(KPU) will read out the final result of the presidential election
runoff before the president-elect takes the oath.

The Susilo-Kalla ticket garnered 69.2 million votes (60.62
percent) to beat the pairing of Megawati Soekarnoputri and Hasyim
Muzadi, who secured 44.9 million votes (39.38 percent) in the
Sept. 20 polls.

Hidayat said on behalf of the Assembly that he would thank in
his opening speech the Indonesian people, security authorities,
the KPU, political parties, and especially President Megawati and
Vice President Hamzah Haz, who had enabled a democratic election
to take place successfully.

The ceremony would last around one hour, Hidayat said.

Separately, Assembly secretary-general Rahimullah said his
office had sent two invitations to Megawati. One was mailed to
her official residence on Jl. Teuku Umar in Central Jakarta, and
the other to her private residence in Kebagusan, South Jakarta.

Besides Megawati and Hamzah, the Assembly secretariat had also
invited former presidents Soeharto, BJ Habibie and Abdurrahman
"Gus Dur" Wahid, and former vice presidents Try Sutrisno and
Sudharmono.

"Only Pak Try Sutrisno has confirmed his attendance,"
Rahimullah said.

Several world leaders will also be present for the ceremony.
They are Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Sultan Hasannal Bolkiah of
Brunei Darussalam, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and
East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. Japan, South Korea, the
Netherlands and Thailand are all to send special envoys.

All the state guests are expected to have arrived at the venue
by 9.35 a.m., and will be followed by vice president-elect Jusuf
Kalla and his predecessor Hamzah Haz.

President-elect Susilo and President Megawati are scheduled to
arrive later. They will be greeted by the Assembly speaker, who
will usher them into the plenary hall.

However, there appears to be little hope that Megawati will
turn up for the ceremony. As of Tuesday, she had neither responded to
the invitation to attend Susilo's inauguration nor congratulated
him on his election victory.