House remains deadlocked over military's presence

JAKARTA (JP): Faction leaders lobbied intensively until late Tuesday night but failed to decide whether to satisfy the Armed Forces (ABRI) proposal of 38 unelected House of Representatives seats, or 15 as the United Development Party (PPP) demanded.

As of 11:45 p.m., Hari Sabarno of ABRI remained closeted in a separate room in the House building with Hamzah Haz, the chairman of PPP, which is now putting up the only resistance in the deliberation of the draft law on the structure of the legislature.

The dominant Golkar party was in agreement with ABRI over the number of seats to be assigned to the military. Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung said the proposed 38 seats would already mean a 50 percent reduction from the current 75 seats.

Abu Hasan Sazili, a Golkar legislator who chairs the House Special Committee entrusted with the task of deliberating the political bills, told reporters during a break they were trying to find common ground in the midst of great differences.

"We are not trying to see who can win or who has to be defeated," he insisted. "We are looking for concessions."

Armed Forces Chief of Territorial Affairs Lt. Gen. Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who represented ABRI in the deliberation on Tuesday night, agreed. He said the tough deliberation should show the public how the democratization process progressed.

"Indeed, we are looking for concessions," said Susilo, who told the House on Tuesday afternoon that ABRI was backing down from its previous demand for at least 40 seats. They now wanted 38 seats, which Susilo said was the minimum number needed for it to function well in the legislature.

But PPP stuck to its guns and said it would not "bargain" on its demand.

"Other countries would accuse us of being a military-run state, if ABRI got more than 15 seats in the new 500-seat House of Representatives," said Harminto A.P. of PPP on Tuesday evening.

"If needs be, we'll stay here (at the House building) until (Wednesday) morning to address these two issues," Harminto said. The other deadlocked issue he referred to was whether the June 7 elections should be held at the district or provincial level.

"It's (an) absolute demand," Hamzah said late Tuesday night.

On Monday, PPP legislators boycotted the deliberation session, citing fears that the issues would be forced to a vote. Should voting take place, Golkar would win as it has 52 representatives in the 87-strong Special Committee, while PPP has 19, ABRI 14 and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) has five members.

Zarkasih Noer, who chairs the PPP faction at the House, described how fellow PPP legislators were calling up Muslim clerics in various parts of the country to ask for their opinion on the desirable number of ABRI seats in the House.

Harminto pointed out that with so many new, smaller political parties contesting the polls in June, the military could end up being one of the strongest factions at the House.

Also on Tuesday, some 250 members of the People's Mandate Party (PAN) marched from nearby Senayan Sports Complex toward the House to display their support for PPP's demand that the military seats be reduced to a minimum.

The demonstrators were not able to enter the House complex and they were dispersed by security personnel shortly afterward.

Separately, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) made a last ditch attempt to argue its case against the presence of ABRI in the House of Representatives and in the provincial and regency legislatures.

"LIPI is of the opinion that ABRI should be given seats only in the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)," it said in a press release here on Monday.

LIPI said it made the suggestion as part of an attempt to help repair ABRI's tarnished image. (rms)