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.