Bali legislators to resign following protests

Bali legislators to resign following protests

DENPASAR (JP): After a week-long protest, Speaker (ret.) Brig.
Gen. I Ketut Sundria, announced yesterday on behalf of the 46
strong provincial legislature that all members would resign from
their posts.

Before a crowd of 20,000 demonstrators at the legislature
building, an obviously shaken Sundria read out a statement which
said the legislator's would resign, "provided that it was done
through a constitutional means".

However the demonstrators, a mixture of local university
students, religious leaders and the general public, were
dissatisfied with the grandiloquent nature of his speech and
asked what his words meant "in plain language".

Sundria acquiesced and gave a plain assurance that he and his
fellow legislators would resign after the necessary
administrative procedures had been completed.

"All members of the legislature, myself included, have no
intention of holding on to our posts," he asserted.

Sundria claimed that he and all members of the outgoing
legislature supported the calls for total reform, which includes
a review of all provincial regulations deemed to be in opposition
to public aspirations and the 1945 Constitution.

Protesters thronged to the legislature building compound early
in the morning.

The crowd included Tabanan regency residents who claimed to
have been wronged during Sundria's tenure as regent there.

Spearheaded by university students, the demonstrations began a
week ago with a call for Bali governor Ida Bagus Oka to resign
from his new position as State Minister of Population.

Oka was condemned for alleged corruption during his tenure as
governor.

The protesters initially demanded that the legislators sign a
statement which said they refused to recognize B.J. Habibie as
President and demanding an extraordinary session of the People's
Consultative Assembly be held.

However Sundria, with the apparent support of all factions in
the legislature, refused.

The protesters then demanded the entire legislature resign for
failing to acknowledge and represent the aspirations of the
people.

Separately, Udayana University professor of law I Dewa Atmaja
urged that "a transitional legislature" be set up as soon as
possible to fill the vacuum left by the mass resignation.

In Jakarta, protests calling for the resignation of Ida Bagus
Oka from his ministerial post continued.

Twenty protesters calling themselves the Bali Exponents for
Reform staged a brief protest outside the main gate of the House
of Representatives.

They were barred from entering the compound by security
officers.

The protest featured traditional Balinese singing and dancing.

The demonstrators said Oka must step down for alleged abuses
of power during his tenure as governor, "in the name of justice."

They presented a list of Oka's alleged "sins" during the
Soeharto era. They include seizing sacred land on the island to
help politically well-connected business people develop tourist
resorts, such as Bali Nirwana Resort, Bali Pecatu Graha, Pulau
Serangan, and Pantai Padanggalak. (28/aan)