One is worth a faction

One is worth a faction

It is understandable if Amien Rais, chairman of the National
Mandate Party, Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairwoman of the
Indonesian Democratic Party Perjuangan, and Abdurrahman Wahid,
chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama, refuse the offer to participate
in the coming Special Session of the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR). From just a technical point of view, it would not
be fair for the vote of a person of such caliber to be worth the
same as the vote of a single MPR ordinary member.

In my belief, the extraordinary offer might have been
responded to differently by the said oppositionists if they would
have been also given an extraordinary privilege, say, that any
individual vote by them would be worth one faction's average
total of votes. With the existing 1,000 MPR members of five
factions, the average vote total of a faction would be 200.

Unless nationally agreed upon, the above version is purely an
"if" scenario because neither the offer nor the mentioned
"dreamed" privilege is in line with the (current) constitutional
process of MPR establishment.

As a common citizen, I do expect that before the convening of
the MPR session, scheduled to begin Nov. 10, splendid ideas or
wise actions would rise up to ensure that the people's
aspirations for total reform can be met properly in the session,
to avoid any unpredictable situation to arise afterward.

ATTILA RAHAYOE

Bekasi, West Java