PDI-P serious about interpellation

PDI-P serious about interpellation

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI
Perjuangan) legislators were warned by their faction chief on
Wednesday to either support a motion for interpellation of
President Abdurrahman Wahid or face sanctions.

Faction chairman Arifin Panigoro insisted on Wednesday that
there should be no detractors among party ranks as it was faction
policy.

"The interpellation has become the faction's policy and should
be supported. We will impose an internal sanction on PDI
Perjuangan legislators who do not support it," Arifin said.

The House of Representatives is due to hold a plenary session
on Thursday to decide, most probably through a vote, on the
interpellation proposal.

Arifin urged all 148 members of the faction to be present at
the plenary session.

The interpellation petition has so far been signed by 278
legislators, mainly from the Golkar Party and PDI Perjuangan
(PDI-P) factions.

It is known that 124 PDI Perjuangan members signed the
petition.

A majority of votes in the 500-seat House is needed for the
motion to be accepted.

It is aimed at summoning and seeking an explanation from the
President over the dismissal of state minister of investment and
state enterprises development Laksamana Sukardi and minister of
trade and industry Yusuf Kalla.

Laksamana is high up in the ranks of PDI Perjuangan while
Yusuf Kalla is a Golkar Party senior member.

Arifin maintained on Wednesday that the interpellation was not
aimed at questioning the President's prerogative to dismiss the
ministers, but on the grounds of making such a hasty decision.

"It is aimed at questioning the inconsistency of the reasons
stated by the President for the ministers' dismissal," he said.

"It seems that the President has lied," he further remarked
while adding that "the President has disappointed the two biggest
party election winners by dismissing the two ministers without
clear reasons".

Abdurrahman earlier said that the replacement of Laksamana and
Yusuf on April 25 was aimed at harmonizing his economics team.

But later, the President, during a closed-door consultative
meeting with House leaders, claimed that they were axed because
the two were allegedly involved in graft.

The interpellation proposal during its debate in earlier
consultative meetings could not be agreed upon. Thus, while a
consensus will try to be sought during Thursday's plenary
session, Arifin predicted that it would most likely have to be
voted on.

In a separate development, the head of the State Logistics
Agency (Bulog) Rizal Ramli formally filed a complaint against the
DeTak tabloid at the Press Council on Wednesday due to a June
report by the weekly titled Sliding Interpellation with Rp 100
million.

"The tabloid has slandered me by publishing an untrue story,"
Rizal said in a statement.

He claimed that DeTak's report that he tried to bribe 50
legislators in order to halt the interpellation petition was
completely untrue.

Rizal expressed disappointment that the tabloid had not
confirmed the story with him or his staff before publishing it.

He earlier filed a defamation report against the tabloid with
the police.(jun)