Crisis looms as reform to Constitution stagnates

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Regardless of the outcome of the current and final phase of amendments to the Constitution, Indonesia is likely to plunge into a constitutional crisis if amendments to the 1945 Constitution are still carried out by current members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

And, the only way to spare Indonesia from another crisis is for the MPR to set up an independent commission consisting of nonpartisan experts and representatives from each regency to either amend the 1945 Constitution or draft a new one, experts say.

But even if the MPR completes its deliberation of the Constitution before the August deadline, the amended Constitution is likely to be full of political compromises.

Legal practitioner Todung Mulya Lubis expressed skepticism on Sunday over the outcome of the current amendment to the Constitution as the process was rife with horse-trading between the political parties.

In the third amendment last year, the MPR agreed that presidential and vice-presidential candidates should be nominated by political parties or a coalition of political parties. The article, according to Todung, gives no opportunity for independent candidates to run in the presidential elections.

"This is an example of horse-trading among political parties in the Assembly whereby no opportunity is given to an independent candidate," Todung told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Jimly Ashiddiqie of the University of Indonesia concurred with Todung, saying that there had been indications of "backdoor dealings" among political parties in the amendment process.

He emphasized that one of the demands raised during the reform movement in 1998 was a direct presidential election.

"Should deliberations on that (the direct presidential election) issue remain uncertain, it would show to the public that the legislators are not carrying out the mandate of the reform movement," Jimly told the Post on Sunday.

Current MPR members, who are mostly remnants from the New Order regime, seem to be more keen in fighting for their narrow, short-term political interests than carrying out genuine improvement to the country's archaic Constitution, one of the ultimate goals of the reform movement.

As political parties continue to cling to their interests, the current amendment deliberations are moving at a snail's pace, raising fears that the constitutional reforms will not be completed by August, when the MPR is expected to endorse the changes in its annual meeting.

Six months after MPR members were given the go-ahead to pursue the constitutional reforms, only six of 18 targeted articles have been deliberated.

Theoretically, the MPR can still complete the deliberation of the bills in the next four months, but given conflicting interests in the remaining 12 articles, it is very unlikely that MPR members can do it.

A deadlock in the deliberations would not only stall constitutional reforms, but also render amendments agreed earlier useless as they could not be implemented.

In the third phase of amendment last year, for example, the Assembly agreed to adopt the direct presidential election. In the current stage, MPR members were supposed to decide on what to do if no presidential aspirants garnered the votes required to win the post.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) have proposed that MPR members would elect the president and vice president, while Golkar and other political parties preferred to organize a fresh round of elections.

It could also mean that the bill on general elections, which is currently being finalized by the government, could not be submitted to the House of Representatives (DPR) for deliberation as the draft was made based on the assumption that Indonesia would adopt a direct presidential election in 2004.

And a failure to enact the general elections into law means that Indonesia would have to use the district system in the next general elections, with the MPR, a super-institution that in the past always betrayed the people's aspiration, still in place.

Todung reiterated that an independent commission was urgently needed to take over responsibility for the amendment.

"Such an independent commission is not only to avoid horse- trading, but also to encourage public participation in the amendment process," Todung added.