House hurries up TNI, autonomy bills
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
With their five-year term ending in roughly a week, members of the House of Representatives are rushing to finish deliberations of the Indonesian Military (TNI) and regional autonomy bills.
They are also scheduled to endorse revisions to the House's internal regulations later on Wednesday. The revisions call for the establishment of a permanent Council of Ethics to boost the House's performance.
Legislators deliberating on the two bills told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that they were still hopeful that the drafts would be endorsed before their term comes to an end on Sept. 30.
Lawmakers discussing revisions to Law No. 22/1999 on regional administrations, one of the two main regional autonomy laws, were discussing the progress on Tuesday.
"We will hear the final report of the deliberation on Sept. 28 before endorsing the draft on Sept. 29," said legislator Agun Gunandjar Sudarsa of Golkar.
The other is Law No. 25/1999 on fiscal balance between the central government and regional administrations.
New members of the House elected in the April 5 election -- some 60 percent in all -- will be sworn in on Oct. 1.
Agun, who heads the team that is deliberating on the revisions, expressed optimism that they would be able to finish on time.
Fellow legislator Zain Badjeber of the United Development Party (PPP) said that legislators had agreed to adopt direct elections for regional heads.
He added, however, that the legislators had not settled the issue on which political parties have the right to field candidates for regional administration elections.
House factions and the government had agreed that candidates must be nominated by political parties or coalitions of parties.
However, they differed on the election threshold for political parties to nominate candidates. A group of legislators proposed that a party or a coalition must have at least 10 percent of seats in the local legislative body before nominating a candidate, but other legislators wanted to raise the number of seats to 15 percent.
Separately, legislators deliberating on the TNI bill started their closed-door deliberations at the House.
Ibrahim Ambong, chairman of the House's commission deliberating the TNI bill, said legislators had been trying to work harder to finish the deliberation.
Ambong, from Golkar, confirmed that his commission had allocated time for deliberation until the end of this session. "However, we will have a plenary meeting of the People's Consultative Assembly. That is an obstacle," he said, referring to the Assembly meeting scheduled for Sept. 23 through Sept. 27.
In addition, Imam Addaruqutni from the National Mandate Party (PAN) disclosed that none of the crucial issues of the TNI bill had been settled.
The crucial issues include the TNI's controversial territorial role, the relationship between the Ministry of Defense and the TNI headquarters and the appointment of active military officers in the bureaucracy.
"We plan to work hard on this bill. However, we will not rush to finish it. Personally, I doubt the legislators can finish the bill," Imam told The Jakarta Post.
All House members are part of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and must then take part in the plenary meeting from Sept. 23 through Sept. 27. They will only have four effective working days to finish the bill.