Habibie calls for successful MPR Special Session

Habibie calls for successful MPR Special Session

JAKARTA (JP): President B.J. Habibie called on the nation
Friday to help ensure the success of the Special Session of the
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which he described as a
very important milestone in Indonesia's journey through the past
53 years.

"There's no reason for anyone not to ensure the success of the
session," Habibie said while receiving 50 ulemas and leaders of
Islamic boarding schools from Java and Madura at the Merdeka
Palace here.

"We have gone through a period of fighting and finally we come
to the session, which we will conduct democratically in the next
five days," he said.

He said the whole country should take part in making the
session on Nov. 10-13 not only a success but also a peaceful and
productive one.

"After this, we will have to be ready for the general election
in five months time. It used to take us two years to prepare for
an election contested by only three parties. This time, we have
only five months to prepare for one with at least 100 new
parties," he said.

Not all of the newly established parties, however, would be
able to contest the poll as there were certain requirements to be
met, Habibie said.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) has
asked all churches and Christian Indonesians to say special
prayers for the success of the session.

The communion also called in a press statement on Christian
Indonesians to pray for national unity and strength so the
country can cope with the economic crisis.

Chairman Sularso Sopater asked people to respect and
appreciate different opinions and do away with selfishness, the
release said.

"This would help accelerate the Special Session so that it
could make significant decisions for the sake of total reform in
the country," Sopater said.

Separately, Mochtar Pabottingi, a respected political scholar
of the National Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the upcoming
session would not be relevant to the people's campaign for reform
if it maintained the presence of the Armed Forces (ABRI) in the
House of Representatives.

"The session can go ahead, but it must not endorse ABRI's
presence in the House," he said in a political discussion
organized by the National Mandate Party (PAN) here on Friday.

"It will be anti-democratic and if endorsed there'll be no
democracy in our country," he said.

Another speaker in the discussion was Golkar legislator Marwah
Daud Ibrahim, who claimed there actually was "mutual agreement"
among legislators that "at a certain ideal point in time" the
military presence in the House would end.

"The question remaining is whether we should end it now, once
and for all, or gradually?" she said, but added that legislators
favored the second option.

Pabottingi begged to differ, saying an offer for ABRI to
remain only in the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) was
indeed a gradual way for it to get out of politics.

He argued the military presence in politics had brought the
nation more disasters than good since it had been abused by the
power holders to serve their political interests.

The termination of the ABRI presence in politics was one of
six requirements that Indonesia must meet before democratization
can commence, Pabottingi said.

The other requirements were sound political parties, fair
elections, legislatures that function well, solid judicial and
executive branches of power, and a free media, Pabottingi said.

He speculated that it was possible the session would be abused
by certain "anti-reform" forces within the Assembly, which he
believed were still "a majority."

By including a draft decree on allotment of House seats for
the Armed Forces among the documents to be deliberated by the
Assembly, he argued, would effectively "shut people up."

"We are expecting a democratic election, but even before it is
started it has been made anti-democratic with the inclusion of
ABRI in the House," he said. (swe/aan)