Harmoko elected House speaker
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)
Exports -- Page 2