Opportunities 'still remain' to alter political bills

Opportunities 'still remain' to alter political bills

JAKARTA (JP): The dominant Golkar faction at the House of
Representatives (DPR) said on Monday there were still
opportunities for the public to propose changes to the draft
political laws currently under deliberation.

Golkar deputy chairman Abu Hasan Sadzili said his faction was
awaiting public suggestions for improvements to the draft laws.

"We have about three months to receive inputs from the public
because the draft laws will be under discussion until January
1999," he said during a discussion with the executives of four
political parties at the House here on Monday.

Sadzili said the draft laws on political parties, general
elections and the DPR structure were submitted to the House early
this month and would be discussed next week and ratified in
January 1999.

La Rose, chairperson of the Indonesian Women's Party, said a
requirement that political parties should collect at least one
million supporters' signatures before they can contest general
elections should be lifted. She said the requirement was
"strange", adding that the number could be manipulated.

She also said that civil servants should be neutral in line
with their role of serving the public.

Taufiqurrohman of the National Awakening Party (PKB) said new
political laws would be useless if the government continued to
deceive people.

He said the government, political parties and politicians
should be honest, speak frankly, and keep their promises.

He said the next general election should be held fairly, and
argued it should also be run by an independent organization with
minimum government involvement.

"To be fair, the government should only play the role of a
facilitator," he said

Nur Mahmudi Ismail, the chairman of the Justice Party, said
the government should abolish the stipulation that all political
parties base their statutes on the state ideology Pancasila.
Abolition would be more in line with the recent developments that
have seen the emergence of many political parties, he said.

"That does not mean the political parties reject Pancasila but
that they should be allowed to found their political orientation
on other basis," he said.

He cited for example that his party was based on the tenets of
Islam but would nevertheless fight for all people's interests and
accept Pancasila.

Mojoindo and Setya Budiono of the Indonesian Uni-Democracy
Party (PUDI) made no comments on the draft laws, saying they were
not prepared for the meeting.

Meanwhile, House Deputy Speaker Lt. Gen. Hari Sabarno, in a
discussion organized by the Aceh branch of the Indonesian Moslem
Students in Banda Aceh, said in this reform era, a sharing of
power among state institutions should be promoted because a
concentration of power in the past had created an authoritarian
and corrupt government.

"That government in its turn disappointed (the people) and has
placed the nation in danger of disintegration," he said.

He argued the House should therefore be empowered so it could
control the government and channel the people's aspirations.

"An important thing the people wish to see is a clean and
respected government," he said.

He said the government in the past had been fiercely
criticized and condemned for rampant corruption.

Now, he said, it was necessary to formulate a nationally-
accepted concept of reform and of political rules in order to
ensure power sharing among institutions, especially between the
legislative bodies and the government.

In Samarinda, chairman of Islamic Crescent and Star Party
Yusril Ihza Mahendra said that President B.J. Habibie's
government had no reason to defer the general election because
any such move would worsen the crisis of its legitimacy.

"To run an early general election would be the best way to
bring an immediate end to the crisis," he said when swearing in
the party's functionaries in the region on Sunday.

He was quoted by Antara as saying the current government was
facing a crisis because it was not accepted by a large part of
society.

He said that only a fair general election run by an
independent committee and observed by the United Nations could
end the crisis.

"A general election held along these lines would be able to
elect a nationally-accepted president," he said.

Yusril, who is also a constitutional law expert, said that
both former president Soeharto's resignation and Habibie's
appointment to the presidency were valid, adding that some people
claimed Habibie's appointment was not legitimate simply because
they did not like him. (rms)