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