Harmoko elected House speaker
JAKARTA (JP): The chairman of the dominant Golkar faction Harmoko was smoothly elected yesterday as speaker of both the House of Representatives and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) for the 1997/2002 term.
Late yesterday evening, a plenary session of the newly sworn- in Assembly chose Harmoko as their speaker.
Nine hundred of the 1,000 members of the Assembly attended the election.
Yesterday's evening session also elected Pudjono Pranjoto, governor of Lampung, as deputy of the MPR regional representatives.
The MPR will be tasked with electing a president and vice president in a general meeting in March along with hammering out the State Policy Guidelines.
Harmoko's election yesterday evening completed his sweep of the two most important institutions as he was elected speaker of the House earlier in the day.
He replaces outgoing speaker Wahono as leader of both the House and MPR.
During the afternoon meeting, it only took an hour before the youngest legislator Liliek Herawati, as chairperson of the election session, struck her gavel marking the House members' unanimous decision to accept Harmoko as the new House speaker.
There was no significant challenge to Harmoko's election.
Maj. Gen. Hari Sabarno, chief of the Armed Forces faction, started the ensemble for Harmoko's election as he was the first to present his faction's nomination for the House speaker candidacy.
Opening his speech, Hari mentioned four names -- Harmoko, Lt. Gen. Syarwan Hamid of the Armed Forces faction, Ismail Hasan Metareum of the United Development Party (PPP) and Fatimah Achmad of PDI -- as qualified candidates.
He described both Ismail and Fatimah as experienced politicians, while Syarwan as a military figure experienced both in military intelligence and territorial affairs.
Hari then described Harmoko as having both executive and legislative experience.
Harmoko was a legislator for the 1977/1982 House period and became minister of information the year after, a post he held for 14 years until being appointed to the newly established post of state minister of special assignments in June.
"The Armed Forces faction has chosen Harmoko as candidate for House speaker," Hari said ending his speech.
Golkar's House faction chief Theo L. Sambuaga, and PDI's House faction chief Budi Hardjono then joined the chorus supporting Harmoko's nomination.
The only faction not showing overt support was PPP which chose not to mention any names for the speaker post.
PPP faction chief Hamzah Haz only mentioned party chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum's name as a candidate for a leading post in the House, but he did not specifically nominate Ismail as the party's candidate for the speaker post.
After all four factions presented their speeches, Liliek Herawati then verbally asked for the legislators' approval.
"Do all House members agree to accept the group of the House's leading lineup?" asked Liliek.
"We agree," the majority of House members shouted as the clock on the wall struck exactly 11:30 a.m.
Four hundred and ninety-three of the 500 House members attended yesterday's session.
Commenting on his unanimous victory, Harmoko said he was glad the session ended smoothly.
He said as speaker, he would concentrate all his efforts on increasing the House's performance.
"I hope that the House can meet President Soeharto's expectation that it will, in the future, develop together and be as strong as the executive body," he remarked.
On now serving in the legislative rather than the executive body, Harmoko maintained that it would not be too different from what he had experienced in the executive body.
"In my opinion, working in the executive branch or serving as a House legislator or leading a political organization has similar value and meaning," he said.
Harmoko's election as speaker further confirms the unwritten tradition that the chairman of the victorious party in the general election leads the House. (imn/amd)
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