House set to endorse broadcast, party bills
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The House of Representatives (DPR) is set to endorse on Thursday two contentious bills, one on political parties and one on broadcasting, despite strong opposition from political parties and broadcasting worker's unions.
The long-overdue political parties bill was scheduled to be endorsed last Tuesday, but was delayed as legislators failed to reach an agreement on the inclusion of two People's Consultative Assembly decrees, one on the banning of communism and one on annual reports by state institutions, in the preamble to the bill
The chairman of the House special committee charged with deliberating the bill, Yahya Zaini, said on Wednesday that all the factions had reached an agreement on the substance of the bill.
He revealed that there had only been a short debate on the inclusion of the Assembly decrees.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) had insisted that the decrees be excluded from the bill's preamble, arguing that they would be reviewed during next year's annual session of the Assembly.
According to the PDI Perjuangan, the decrees would be revoked, and therefore there was no need to include them in the preamble to the political parties bill.
Meanwhile, the broadcasting bill, which was supposed to have been endorsed on Monday, was delayed until Thursday because of poor attendance by legislators and opposition from media practitioners.
And the protests against the bill continued on Wednesday when television broadcasters grouped in the Indonesian Television Broadcasting Association (ATVSI) met Assembly Speaker Amien Rais to voice their objections.
The delegation, headed by Karni Ilyas of SCTV, condemned the bill, saying that it was repressive and threatened the existence of private sector broadcasters.
"We urge the government and the legislators to delay the endorsement and to review the bill," Karni read from a prepared statement.
Karni, who was accompanied by Andi F. Noya (Metro TV), Wisnuhadi (RCTI), Nurhadi Purwosaputro (Indosiar), and Uni Lubis (TV7), acknowledged that his group had submitted its views during the deliberation of the bill.
However, he claimed that 99 percent of the group's input had been ignored by legislators.
Responding to the complaint, Amien appealed to legislators to give time for further talks on the bill before bringing it before a plenary session for endorsement.
"I think it needs more time before being endorsed. No need to hurry," he said.
Amien, who also chairs the National Mandate Party (PAN), said that the different views expressed on the broadcasting bill had prompted him to reassess it.
He added that a broadcasting law was a very strategic instrument in that it could lead to either greater or less democracy.
If there was no freedom of the press, Amien said, it would only lead to a bad situation.
"But if freedom of the press exists, there are two possibilities. It may give rise to a good or a bad situation depending on the television stations," he said.