'Boxing' legislators bury the hatchet

Fabiola Desy Unidja and Abu Hanifah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Embarrassed by Thursday's brawl at the opening session of the People's Consultative Assembly, legislators ducked for cover whenever the incident was raised on Friday.

They said they did not want to hear it discussed again in public because all the involved lawmakers had agreed to bury the hatchet and forgive each other.

But the nationally televised incident of the opening of the 10-day Annual Session remained a hot topic everywhere.

Vice President Hamzah Haz discussed it when addressing Friday mass prayers at a mosque in the Tanah Abang area, Central Jakarta. He said he was amazed that legislators had resorted to physical violence to resolve a problem.

"See yesterday's brawl? I could have understood it if they had been kids, but they were adults," he said. He regretted the incident.

"We usually see such behavior happen in other countries, but we saw our legislators at it yesterday."

The scuffle pitted legislators demanding recognition of the re-establishment of the regional representatives faction, a legacy of the New Order regime, in one corner and those opposed to it in the other corner.

At least one legislator, Marah Simon from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), was hurt. Assembly Speaker Amien Rais immediately apologized to the nation for the fight.

In the latest development, legislators seeking re- establishment of the 130-member Regional faction, which was dismantled in 1999, seemed to have lost their fight. Major factions rejected their demands.

When presenting their assessment of the government accountability report on Friday, most factions in the Assembly ended their speech expressing their regret of the fight.

Jacob Tobing, a PDIP senior legislator at the Assembly said, "It's over and we don't want to hear it raised again."

Although the incident was very much regretted, the Assembly leadership do not have any plan to investigate it, neither do they plan to punish the "fighters" who have tarnished the institution's image.

The brawl was the first to have occurred in the Assembly's history.

Article 67 in MPR Decree No. II/1999 on the MPR's internal rule stipulates that legislators who disrupt a session are subject to a verbal warning and expulsion from the convention room if the warning is ignored.

Patrialis Akbar, lawmaker of the National Mandate Party (PAN), blamed the incident partly on Amien Rais, who he said was not strict enough in leading the session.