Golkar, ABRI 'to lobby' PPP to accept Soeharto's speech

Golkar, ABRI 'to lobby' PPP to accept Soeharto's speech

JAKARTA (JP): Officials from the Armed Forces (ABRI) and the
dominant Golkar faction said they would "lobby" the United
Development Party (PPP), the sole holdout in accepting President
Soeharto's accountability speech.

Golkar's Agung Laksono and chairman of the Armed Forces
faction in the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Lt. Gen.
Yunus Yosfiah said they would encourage PPP to accept the
President's address.

Agung Laksono said Golkar would like to see the accountability
speech endorsed by all five factions.

"We will strive for a total endorsement. We will lobby the PPP
to accept the presidential accountability speech," he said,
adding that there would be no exceptions to the presidential
accountability speech.

"It's part of the Assembly's job," he said explaining the need
for an endorsement. "That's why we are all here now."

Yunus said the Armed Forces faction would wait for PPP's final
decision on the president's speech before exerting all its
lobbying prowess to get an endorsement.

"We need to know the PPP's reasons for withholding its
decision."

The PPP on Wednesday withheld its endorsement of President
Soeharto's leadership accountability statement, saying it would
announce its stance after the final debate scheduled for Monday.

The other four factions in the 1,000-strong Assembly -- the
dominant Golkar, the Armed Forces (ABRI), the Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI) and regional representatives -- as widely
expected said they would endorse the speech without reservation.

The Moslem-oriented PPP argued that President Soeharto had
failed to give a crystal-clear explanation about issues such as
the current economic crisis, poor law enforcement, corruption in
the bureaucracy and the painfully slow pace of political change.

PPP secretary-general Tosari Widjaja said yesterday his
faction's decision to withhold its endorsement of the President's
accountability speech was not a violation of existing Assembly
rules.

"Do not misunderstand our stance. We are in compliance with
the Assembly sessions' procedures," he said quoting articles 90
and 91 of the Assembly internal rules.

Chairman of PPP's faction in the Assembly, Jusuf Syakir,
supported Tosari's argument.

"I think we have to consider the issue proportionally."

He said that there were procedures that each faction was
allowed to go through before it presented its final decision.

"We must have prior discussion on every subject brought into
the Assembly's general sessions."

But in a late development yesterday evening, PPP's Hamzah Haz
signaled that the party would likely bow and accept the
accountability speech.

He told journalists to listen to the faction's response in
today's meeting of Commission C in charge of deliberating the
accountability address.

"We've already nominated Pak Harto, how can we reject his
accountability speech," he said as quoted by Antara.

Decrees

When asked if the minority faction would also dispute the
decrees to be endorsed by the Assembly, Jusuf said PPP would
likely accept the drafts which had already been deliberated in
the Assembly's working committees.

"We will endorse the drafts into decrees as there won't be any
major changes to them," he said.

Later yesterday, the Assembly's three commissions held their
first meeting to elect their respective chairpersons.

Commission A for State Policy Guidelines elected Golkar's R.
Hartono as its chairman, Commission B for presidential and vice
presidential elections named Gen. Wiranto of the Armed Forces
faction as chair, while Commission C for presidential
accountability will be chaired by Ida Bagus Oka of the regional
representatives.

Deliberation in the commissions will run from today through
tomorrow.

Each faction is scheduled to endorse the drafts of the policy
guidelines and Assembly decrees and the President's
accountability speech on Monday.

Golkar's secretary-general Ary Mardjono said yesterday that he
expects no faction to reject the agreements concluded in prior
sessions of the Assembly's working committees.

"All factions should comply with the agreements of the working
committees," he said.

Yunus said he would ask other factions whether they were
planning to reopen discussions in the working committees.

The Assembly's acceptance of the decrees is not unexpected as
a unanimous agreement on the drafts was reached during
preliminary sessions which were concluded in January. (imn/amd)