House hurries up TNI, autonomy bills
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.