DPR criticizes political bills

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives (DPR) questioned the government on Wednesday over three political bills it had submitted for deliberation last month.

All four House factions argued in a plenary session that the bills still had many loopholes which could be taken advantage of to manipulate and distort elections.

In the second reading of the bills, attended by Minister of Home Affairs Lt. Gen. Syarwan Hamid, the Golkar, United Development Party (PPP), Armed Forces (ABRI) and Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) factions agreed the drafts needed improvement.

The three bills being deliberated are on general elections (74 articles), political parties (19 articles) and the structure and function of the DPR, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and the provincial and regency legislatures (DPRD I and DPRD II) (50 articles).

The government submitted the bills in a bid to change current political laws which have been widely criticized for being undemocratic and favoring the dominant Golkar party.

The PPP and PDI factions argued on Wednesday that the new bill on political parties still benefited Golkar.

PPP faction spokesman Robbani Thoha and PDI faction spokesman Bambang Mintoko pointed out that the floating mass concept, which the New Order regime used to effectively ban political parties from establishing branches in the subdistrict and village levels, would be still in effect under the bill.

The two factions called for the policy -- retained in the bill's article 11 that stipulates that political parties can only have chapters in the Jakarta or in provincial or regency capitals -- to be scrapped. The Golkar and ABRI factions did not draw attention to the article.

Members of the civil servants corps (Korpri) -- used by Golkar over the past 32 years to mobilize people in the subdistrict and village level -- should be free to join any political party, the PDI and PPP spokesmen said.

"The floating mass policy employed all these years by the New Order has distanced people from political parties and has systematically depoliticized them," Mintoko said.

"Civil servants and ABRI members must be returned to their functions as neutral servants of the public ... unburdened by political missions," he added.

Regarding the bill on general elections, PPP suggested elections be conducted on a holiday or a day declared a national holiday to avoid "political engineering".

On the combined "district and proportional" electoral system proposed, all four factions questioned whether necessary changes to the current system would be ready by the next elections slated for May 1999. PPP said necessary changes would serve only to "divert and cover up problems" rather than fixing existing problems created by the current proportional electoral system used. Numerous abuses were reported in last year's elections.

In response, Minister of Home Affairs Syarwan Hamid later told journalists: "For us as the poll organizer, it's a challenge ... We can no longer postpone the poll, can we?"

However, he stressed the current bills were "not a fixed price" and were open to change.

Earlier, on the DPR/MPR bill, ABRI, PPP and PDI questioned why the government proposed members of the DPRD I and II be elected by current legislators.

PPP called the stipulation stated in article 47 "bizarre".

It also questioned why 205, or 30 percent, of the 700 DPR/MPR members should be appointed and not elected, arguing the number was too high.

The bill stipulates that the DPR be made up of 495 elected members and 55 appointed members from ABRI. To form the 700- member MPR, the 550 members would be supplemented with 81 regional representatives (from the DPRD I and II) and 69 group representatives.

PPP was the only faction that questioned the allocation of seats for ABRI, while PDI said it could understand why the military should still be allotted representation.

Quoting Article 27 of the 1945 Constitution which states all citizens are equal, PPP asked why the government wished to give special privileges to ABRI in the bill.

Deputy House Speaker Hari Sabarno of the ABRI faction, who presided over the plenary session, told the government representatives to respond to the House's questions on Oct. 21. (aan)