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)