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)