Open voting system
Open voting system
From Media Indonesia
The conflict between President Abdurrahman Wahid and the House of Representatives has been going on for quite a while and is becoming more alarming. In the New Order era, political power was in the hands of a dictatorial and authoritarian president, but today our House is dictatorial and oligarchic. Daily, a handful of legislators demonstrate their enmity toward the President by countering his statements, thereby worsening the political tension.
These legislators now have the upper hand as the People's Consultative Assembly is to convene a special session on Aug. 1, 2001. The special session's sole agenda is hearing the President's accountability report.
These legislators know that if the accountability report is rejected, the President will be impeached and unseated. To make their grand plan come true, they will demand for an open voting system, just like what they did when they passed two censure motions against the President.
In the New Order era, decision making was always based on the principle of "deliberation and consensus", which was fraught with manipulation. At present the open voting system is also fraught with manipulation. The political scene today is dominated by party and faction leaders who are actual the decisionmakers. So, a legislator voicing a different opinion will be pressured by other members of his faction.
What's worse, the mass media have portrayed the party and faction leaders as celebrities in a legislative oligarchy, resulting in the marginalizing of the participation of other legislators.
So if the upcoming special session of the Assembly is to serve as a means to resolve the political crisis, conscience must be used and public opinion building in the interest of a particular party must be avoided.
In this respect, the system of closed voting, which was used when President Abdurrahman was elected president in the general session of the Assembly in 1999, should be used to allow every legislator to vote according to his conscience and decide whether the President should be brought down.
SULISTIYANI
Bandung