House factions close to reconciling
House factions close to reconciling
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
After boycotting all plenary and commission meetings over the
past two weeks, the People's Coalition agreed on Monday to attend
House of Representatives meetings beginning Tuesday (today).
Their presence in the meetings would lend the needed
legitimacy to the leaders of House commissions and auxiliary
bodies, whose electoral process was legally flawed, as less than
half of House factions showed for the election.
Under the House's standing orders, a meeting may pass a
decision only if more than 50 percent of both House members and
factions are present.
"Following a consensus among 10 factions, we will attend the
Tuesday plenary meeting and all other meetings of the House,"
National Mandate Party (PAN) faction chairman Abdillah Toha said
on Monday.
Leaders of the 10 House factions held a meeting on Sunday
evening to find a resolution to the weeks-long impasse triggered
by an internal disagreement on the electoral mechanism for
leaders of commissions and auxiliary bodies.
The Nationhood Coalition -- the Golkar Party, the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Reform Star Party (PBR)
and the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) -- along with the National
Awakening Party (PKB), have insisted that the posts be put to the
vote.
The People's Coalition -- the United Development Party (PPP),
PAN, the Democratic Party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and
several minor parties -- have insisted that the posts be
distributed proportionately among House factions.
The disagreement ended in a standoff that brought the House to
a virtual standstill for almost two weeks.
Abdillah said the 10 faction leaders agreed to revise the
House's standing orders, mainly on the composition of
chairmanship posts so that all factions would be represented.
He added the revision would open the way for a reshuffle in
the commission chairmanship based on the proportionate scheme
demanded by the People's Coalition.
The posts of chairman for House commissions are currently all
held by the Nationhood Coalition.
Separately, Bursah Zarnubi of the PBR faction confirmed that
the 10 factions had agreed to revise the House's standing orders.
He said, however, that they had not reached an agreement on
the articles to be revised.
"Most likely, the plenary meeting will assign the House's
Legislative Body (Baleg) to hold an in-depth discussion of the
revision," Bursah told The Jakarta Post.
PKB faction chairman Ali Masykur Musa said the faction was
ready to discuss revisions to the House's standing orders.
"We welcome the readiness of the five factions to attend the
plenary meeting. So far, we have not yet received the revision
concept," Ali said.
The House has been criticized for the internal power struggle
that led to a prolonged deadlock, with pro-government People's
Coalition boycotting all meetings and hearings.
Despite the boycott, however, the Nationhood Coalition and the
PKB, which together hold 309 of 547 of House seats, went ahead
with meetings because they had secured a majority.
They also revised the House's standing orders and scrapped a
stipulation that a House meeting required more than half the
factions to be legitimate.