Interest Group faction at MPR faces guillotine

Interest Group faction at MPR faces guillotine

Abu Hanifah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Interest Group faction, a non-elected group in the
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), were fighting for survival
on Wednesday claiming they were still a necessary component of
the Assembly.

The 65-member faction will be scrapped if the MPR eventually
endorses the change of the current system into a bicameral system
similar to the U.S. congress in which all members are elected, to
either the Senate or the House.

Deliberations on the change from the current system are
currently under deliberation. Most factions are reported to have
supported the idea.

Interest Group faction members, shocked by the plan, charged
that those who endorsed the elimination of the faction had
betrayed the MPR principle of accommodating all groups in
Indonesia.

"The problem is that not all political parties have the will
to represent certain groups in society in the law-making
process," Harun Kamil, the Interest Group faction chairman, told
reporters.

The "interest groups" consist of representatives from, among
others, cooperatives, civil servants, teachers, women's groups,
laborers, journalists, religious-based organizations, farmers,
fisheries and war veterans.

They are appointed by their respective organizations, not
elected in the general elections. The 1945 Constitution states
that the MPR consists of the members of the House of
Representatives and the interest groups.

Present at yesterday's press briefing were Interest Group
members such as Nursjahbani Katjasungkana, Sri Edi Swasono,
Soedijarto, Rais Abin, Mohamad Assegaf and Sabam Siagian.

Sabam, from the Indonesian Christian Intelligentsia
Association (PIKI), insisted that the faction needed to be
retained until Indonesia had a good election system which allows
representation throughout society.

"Perhaps in 10 years, we will not need it. But it would be
premature to drop it now," he said.

The groups which supported the idea of retaining the Interest
Group faction in the MPR were significant however, those being
the Military/Police faction and President Megawati
Soekarnoputri's Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI
Perjuangan), the largest single faction in the MPR.