City Council withholds approval of bylaw draft

JAKARTA (JP): After a heated debate, the City Council postponed the enactment of a city bylaw on the establishment of subdistrict councils following a vote during a plenary meeting on Friday evening.

Of the 65 councillors attending the plenary session, 39 of them supported delaying the enactment of the bylaw, while the other 26 took the opposite stand in the vote which ended at 8:20 p.m.

The other 20 city councillors were absent from the meeting for various reasons, including a number of members who are on the haj pilgrimage.

According to councilors who supported a delay in the enactment of the bylaw, legalizing the draft would violate existing Law No. 34/1999 on the administration of Jakarta as the capital of Indonesia. The law gives community unit (RW) heads the power to determine members of local subdistrict councils without having to involve the heads of neighborhood units (RT).

The councilors said the draft bylaw proposed RW heads discuss the candidates for the subdistrict councils with the RT chiefs.

The plenary meeting ended without setting a new date to further discuss the draft.

The draft was proposed by the councilors and Friday's plenary session was scheduled to be the final one before its enactment.

According to the draft bylaw, the elected members of the subdistrict councils would have the right to raise questions and share opinions with the City Council. They would also be given the power to nominate candidates for the planned mayoralty councils based on the aspirations of local residents.

The members of the subdistrict councils would also be obliged to give suggestions to subdistrict heads in their respective areas on day-to-day administrative affairs, and help explain their subdistricts' policies to local residents.

"Each member of the subdistrict council will receive about Rp 100,000 (US$13) per month for their services," the city secretary's assistant for administrative affairs, Ma'mun Amin, told reporters after the meeting ended.

Jakarta has five mayoralties, which are divided into 43 districts and 265 subdistricts, with 2,527 RWs and 28,894 RTs.

The final bylaw draft had been cut down to eight chapters and 21 articles, compared to the original draft which contained 10 chapters and 27 articles.

The draft stipulates that each RW in a subdistrict be represented by a respected figure in the community on the subdistrict council. Candidates must be willing to leave their current jobs and must meet several qualifications, including a minimum of a junior high school education, be at least 21 years of age and have resided in their respective RWs for at least three years.

The city administration allocated more than Rp 1.4 billion in the 2000 city budget to finance the activities of the subdistrict councils.

The vote was taken on Friday after endless arguments among the council's factions about whether to pass the draft.

The plenary meeting began at 9:30 a.m. and was scheduled to end at 3 p.m., with Governor Sutiyoso to deliver a speech.

The meeting was extended until the evening to accommodate debates among several councillors, particularly members of the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and the United Development Party (PPP), who insisted that the draft must not be passed.

The majority of the other factions in the council were ready to pass the draft. The Golkar Party faction expressed willingness to approve the draft, but suggested the enactment of the bylaw be delayed if possible.

"We need a transition period before we enact this bylaw since we have to introduce the proposed subdistrict councils to the citizens," said Sugeng Suprijatna of the Golkar Party faction.

According to members of the PDI Perjuangan and PPP factions, Law No. 34/1999, which outlines the establishment of the subdistrict councils in Jakarta, was undemocratically enacted by the House of Representatives.

They said the House hastily deliberated the law without asking for input from city councillors or the city administration.

"We will deliver a petition to the House to amend the law," Hizbiyah Rochim of the PPP faction said.

PDI Perjuangan also based its rejection of the draft bylaw on the fact that political party members were not allowed to represent their parties, as stipulated in Article 5, Clause 3 of the draft.

"We are entitled to about 40 percent of the seats on the councils because we won the June 1999 elections," said PDI Perjuangan faction chairman Audy Tambunan.

Councillor Syamsuardi Botan of the National Mandate Party (PAN) faction, who chaired the draft formulation team, regretted that some factions had rejected the draft, saying they had wasted money and time.

"It will take a long time if we want to amend the law by delivering a petition to the House," he said. (nvn)