House remains deadlocked over military's presence

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)