Challenges, opportunities and hope for the House

Challenges, opportunities and hope for the House

Mochtar Buchori, Jakarta

The current internal conflict within the House of
Representatives has prompted many people to express concerns and
worry about our future as a nation. These concerns do not come
only from people outside the House but from current and former
legislators as well.

Most of these voices express their strong disapproval
regarding the current conduct of House members. There are some
voices, however, that along with the criticism also express hope
for an eventual improvement in the House, both institutionally
and individually on the part of the legislators.

M. Akil Mochtar -- a current member of the House -- said in an
interview that "...legislators must improve (their performance)
so that they can produce quality legislation." He also charged
his colleagues in the House with not being "politically mature".
However, he said the present difficulties within the House should
be looked upon as a process through which members could acquire
political maturity -- a trial by fire, if you like.

Another remark, which is fairly sharp, came from Yayan GH
Mulyana of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He wrote that with
regards to foreign policy matters the House has shown a "growing
self-confidence" which unfortunately is not coupled with "the
appropriate know-how and competence in the field of foreign
policy." Its activism is also "deficient in traditions and
character" -- something that I completely concur with.

A broad and scathing criticism was leveled by Owen Podger, co-
author of Government for All People, a recent report for the
Asian Development Bank.

In an article in The Jakarta Post on Oct. 30, he virtually
accused the old House of being incompetent in revising Law No.
22/1999 on the regional government, which was considered by many
as deficient. In his opinion the new law that replaces it, Law
No.32/2004, is not any better than the one it is trying to
improve. In his opinion, the new law has created as many new
problems as it has solved old ones. The quality of the new law
is, in his opinion, as bad as that of the old law, i.e. lacking
"clarity, consistency, and appropriateness."

What these critics are saying seems to be that our
legislators -- and our politicians in general -- have to bring
our political system to a higher level of quality. And to this
end they have to learn many things. And the essence of these
"many things" is, as I understand it, the qualities of
statesmanship.

The question now is how to persuade or prompt our legislators
toward this act of learning. It can be safely assumed, I think,
that most of our legislators will not voluntarily commit
themselves to such an undertaking. And if somehow through public
pressure they become willing to learn novel and new ideas and
concepts, what exactly must they learn? I do not think it right
or wise to answer this question on the basis of personal opinion.
What is needed here is "public guidance" or "public preferences",
if you like.

For the purpose of finding such an answer a small group of
former members of the House met recently to discuss this issue.
They were joined by an equally small group of non-politicians
concerned with the present political situation. In the discussion
that followed, three basic reasons were mentioned as the main
cause of the present political turmoil.

These are: (1) lack of understanding concerning the gravity of
the national situation created by the deadlock; (2)
overdependence of individual legislators on the leadership of
their respective factions in making political decisions; and (3)
lack of technical competence related to issues that arise within
the designated field of each commission.

The broad consensus that emerged in this discussion was that
better political interaction and cooperation will come only in
the House if legislators are willing to develop three things --
technical competence in their respective fields, a working
knowlege of political ethics, and a commitment to morality. These
three concepts are interrelated.

This kind of technical competence will bring political
deliberations on any matter to considerations about ethical
standards, to conscious and deliberate considerations concerning
the impact of any political decision on the public. This will
constitute the beginning of political ethics within the House.
And if this is done consistently and continuously, it is
reasonable to expect that in the end political morality will
emerge within the House.

Another issue discussed in the meeting was about improving the
quality of the personal assistants and advisors in the House. The
general opinion among the participants was that programs for
improving legislators' competence and that of personal assistants
should go hand-in-hand. This is because good laws will come only
out of deliberations conducted by knowledgeable legislators
supported by well-trained technical staff. One of the reasons why
laws produced by the House in the past often failed to meet
public expectations were that the deliberations conducted prior
to the passing of those laws were seldom based on exhaustively
researched information. No legislator can carry out such
exhaustive research without the help of competent research
assistants.

The House has tried to solve this problem in the past. In
2003, if I am not mistaken, every legislator was given the
opportunity to hire a personal assistant whose job was to assist
the legislator in gathering information related to issues under
deliberation. This experiment, however, failed to reach its
intended objective. The reason was that many legislators had
abused this privilege.

Instead of hiring someone who was really capable, many
legislators hired instead members of their family: A son or a
daughter, or a son-in-law or daughter-in-law, a brother or
sister, or a good friend. Some personal assistants were hired
simply for their good looks.

Against this background, it is not surprising that many people
wonder whether our legislators are really interested in improving
their performance and their quality. It is not surprising either,
I think, that many people feel pessimistic about a seeing a
better-quality House in the near future.

Let us hope for the best, but let us not lose our hope if
things do not proceed to our liking.

As Alexander Dubchek said, "Hope dies last." A nation that
does not even have the power to hope is lost.

The writer was a House member for the 1999-2004 period