PDI Perjuangan, Golkar pave the way to amendment

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.