PDI Perjuangan, Golkar pave the way to amendment
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Hopes have risen that the exhausting debate over constitutional amendments will avoid a deadlock after the influential Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) gave up its resistance to a direct second round presidential election.
The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) will now negotiate the equally contentious issue of the composition of the MPR, in which PDI Perjuangan insists on incorporating the Indonesian Military.
PDI Perjuangan legislator Jakob Tobing confirmed on Friday that the party had dropped its earlier stance that the second round presidential and vice presidential elections should be conducted by the MPR.
"We maintained our position for some time for fear of people's unreadiness for the direct presidential election. But eventually we came to a conclusion that we have to make people ready," Jakob, who chairs the MPR Ad Hoc Commission I for constitutional amendment, told The Jakarta Post.
He was commenting on an overnight agreement between PDI Perjuangan and Golkar leaders in yet another informal meeting ahead of the August MPR Annual Session.
The two parties agreed that the people would vote in the second round presidential election, which takes place if no candidates for president/vice president win a simple majority vote. Only the top two pairs are eligible for the run-off.
The immediate turnaround of PDI Perjuangan quickly drew speculation there was a backroom deal between the party and Golkar.
But Jakob denied such speculation, saying that his party simply returned to its original stance.
"We still have two years to make people prepared for direct presidential elections, both in the first and second round, and we are ready for that," Jakob, a former Golkar member, said.
Golkar deputy chairman Fahmi Idris also refuted opinions that there was a deal between Golkar and PDI Perjuangan.
"We offer nothing to them. It's their own faith to support the second round of election," Fahmi told the Post by phone Friday night, before going to another meeting at a hotel in Central Jakarta.
Earlier this month PDI Perjuangan spearheaded attempts to foil a motion to set up a House of Representatives special committee of inquiry into speaker Akbar Tandjung's alleged role in a graft scandal involving the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) in 1999. Akbar chairs Golkar.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, who chairs PDI Perjuangan, and Vice President Hamzah Haz, who leads the United Development Party, played the same tune earlier on Friday in appealing to the MPR to avoid a deadlock during voting in the upcoming Annual Session to endorse the amendments to the Constitution.
The intention would likely come true as one of the major obstacles had been removed from the debate.
MPR Speaker Amien Rais also hailed the consensus between PDI Perjuangan and Golkar.
However, doubts over a successful MPR Annual Session remain despite the latest development, with some suspecting that a unanimous consensus would become the objective, not just the means. To avoid a stalemate, they said, the MPR might just retain the current presidential election system.
"I cannot say for sure whether all factions will agree with the direct second round presidential election, but PDI Perjuangan will support the idea," Jakob said.
Fellow PDI Perjuangan legislator Pataniari Siahaan was skeptical that the agreement between his party and Golkar was binding.
National Awakening Party (PKB) deputy chairman Mahfud M.D., suspected that the consensus was a conspiracy to bring the fourth batch of constitutional amendments to a deadlock.
Mahfud, a former defense minister, suspected that PDI Perjuangan and Golkar would put a specific clause in the transitory provision of the Constitution to delay the implementation of a direct presidential election until 2009.
Two most contentious articles of the fourth constitutional amendment package
Article 2:
Alternative 1: MPR consists of members of the House of Representatives (DPR) and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) elected through general elections, plus interest groups elected by the DPR as regulated further by law.
Alternative 2: MPR consists of members of the DPR and the DPD elected through general elections as regulated further by law.
Article 6A:
Alternative 1: In the event that no presidential and vice presidential pair is elected, the MPR elects the president and vice president from the two pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates gaining the most votes.
Alternative 2: In the case of no presidential and vice presidential pair being elected, the people will directly elect the president and vice president from the two pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates gaining the most votes, and the pair gaining the most votes in this election is officially declared president and vice president.