PDI wants fewer House commissions
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), which won only 11 of the 425 House of Representatives seats contested in the May election, is seeking to reduce the number of House commissions to suit its tiny minority.
PDI legislator Markus Wauran said yesterday that he believed the number of commissions should be cut from 11 to five so the House would become more efficient.
A special committee of representatives of the House's four factions has been meeting since July 9 to review the 1983 House Internal Rules and is expected to release its recommendations by July 22.
"We will definitely ask for a cut in the number of House commissions," Markus said.
The PDI's poor election performance was a far cry from the 56 seats it won in the 1992 election.
PDI chairman Soerjadi, who toppled popular PDI chief Megawati Soekarnoputri, lost his seat in the 500-seat House, and will have to give it up when its new members are inducted on Oct. 1.
The government-backed Golkar party won 325 seats, and the United Development Party (PPP) won 89 seats in the election. Representatives of the Armed Forces, whose members do not vote, will occupy the House's remaining 75 seats.
House decisions are only valid if all four factions are represented. This means the PDI must field at least one legislator at every decision-making session. This burden is increased by the obligation that each faction is expected to field a deputy House Speaker.
According to Article 57 of the House's internal rules, the House speaker and his deputies cannot be commission members. Therefore, unless the number of commissions is cut, one PDI member will have to sit on two commissions.
House commission I, for instance, deals with foreign affairs, politics and information; commission II is on home affairs; commission III is on legal affairs; and commission IX is on science and education.
Hard
Markus told The Jakarta Post that it would be very hard for a legislator to attend every session of a commission.
But Markus said the PDI had not decided on how many commissions to propose.
"There should be at least two legislators in one commission. So the ideal number of commissions, for PDI, should be five," he said.
But Golkar legislator Syamsul Mu'arif brushed off the idea.
"One commission would then be too big because it would have to accommodate 100 House members," he said. "Even the rooms available are not big enough for that."
Syamsul suggested seven or eight commissions. "There should be one PDI legislator for each commission, one as deputy speaker, one as the faction's leader, one in the committee for inter- parliamentary cooperation and one in the household committee," he said.
A smaller working group would be set up to work on a detailed draft of recommendations. A plenary session has to approve any changes to the internal rules, which have 176 articles, before they can be introduced.
Golkar proposed yesterday that commission chairpersons should only be appointed if they were nominated by three other commission members.
PDI disagreed. Markus said this would only help Golkar dominate the commissions' leadership at the expense of the PDI which would not be able to field three representatives in any particular commission.
The newly elected legislators will begin their duty on Oct. 1. (35/amd)