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.