No need for President to join MPR Annual Session: Yusril

The Jakarta Post, Surabaya/Yogyakarta

President Megawati Soekarnoputri could skip the Annual Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) this coming August as she will not be accountable to the Assembly once the 1945 Constitution is amended, a minister said on Monday.

Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra, who is also a constitutional law expert, said the Assembly, under the amended Constitution, would not be in charge of upholding the people's mandate.

The third amendment stipulates that the Assembly's duty is only to amend the 1945 Constitution and to impeach the president.

"The President (Megawati Soekarnoputri) can skip the annual progress report to the Assembly, since she is no longer obligated whatsoever to the MPR," Yusril said at the Sukolilo Asrama Haji dormitory in Surabaya, during the ongoing congress of the Muhammadiyah Youth (PP).

Yusril was speaking about the upcoming Annual Session of the MPR next month.

"Now, realizing that the Assembly will lose its authority, the legislators are trying to re-enact the MPR's several fields of responsibility through a provisional ruling in the next amendment," Yusril said.

"This is just constitutionally ridiculous. We are facing a constitutional crisis if the MPR continues to push its interests without any regard to the principles of the law," he added.

Yusril said he was not speaking as the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, but as a expert on constitutional law.

On presidential elections, Yusril, who is also the chairman of the Crescent Star Party (PBB), said that the party believed that if the first round of elections failed to yield a majority, then a second round should be held within the Assembly.

"If we have to hold a second election, there would be a leadership vacuum for quite some time and the political and economic costs would be huge. Politically speaking, the risk of delaying poll results would be very dangerous," Yusril said.

Yusril's position is the same as Megawati's in the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan). The Indonesian Military/Police faction at the MPR and the interest groups faction also support PDI Perjuangan's position.

Meanwhile, other factions, including the former ruling Golkar Party faction, the National Awakening Party and the National Mandate Party factions, are in favor of a second election.

In the next Annual Session, Yusril said his faction would continue to fight for the adoption of Islamic law in the Constitution.

Meanwhile, another constitutional law expert, Adnan Buyung Nasution, said in Yogyakarta on Monday that the MPR must complete its fourth amendment of the Constitution.

The most important element of the fourth amendment would be that on the direct presidential election, and therefore the Assembly must reach an agreement on this crucial issue, he said.

Political analyst Ichlasul Amal from Gadjah Mada University concurred and said that the Assembly must let the public elect their president.

To avoid a second presidential election, Amal suggested that the pair of presidential and vice presidential candidates with the most votes should be declared the winner.

"A 50-percent-plus-one outcome in this case is not necessary," he said, adding that a presidential candidate winning with less than 40 percent of the vote could be installed as president.