Political analysts wary about calls for strong House

Political analysts wary about calls for strong House

JAKARTA (JP): Political observers lauded yesterday President
Soeharto's call for a strong House of Representatives, but also
expressed doubt that it could be achieved under the current
political situation.

Tomy Legowo of the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies said Soeharto's statement came as a positive response to
rising public demands for a strong people's representative body.

"But our bid to build a strong House does not rest on the
statement. The next question is whether the House wants to
improve itself or not," Legowo said.

Muhammad A.S. Hikam of the National Institute of Sciences said
the House could not serve as a voice for public aspirations in
the absence of recruitment procedures which were free from
government control.

"We need a political format which allows House legislators to
struggle for the people they are representing instead of only
serving the interest of their respective political
organizations," he said.

He said a failure to establish a free, direct, secret, fair
and honest general election would only reduce the House's status
to a "quasi representation".

"The present model of representation is a limited, controlled
and vetted one," he said.

Legowo shared Hikam's view, saying that the House was
incapable of representing its constituents. He said House
legislators were expected to abide only by the rules set by their
respective political organizations.

Indonesia applies an election system in which people vote for
political organizations rather than legislative candidates.

Hikam said the present political system did recognize
autonomous individuals, but it only recognized the House as the
sole institution through which people could channel their
aspirations.

He said extra institutions, such as non-governmental
organizations, mass organizations and interest groups, suffered
discrimination or had to endure suspicion by the government.

"The government's repeated call for people to relay their
demands through the House is aimed at restricting them from
seeking alternative means which are beyond the government's
control," he said.

However, Legowo expressed guarded optimism that some
legislators would not always follow all the policies of their
respective organizations just like that.

"I believe we will see some outspoken legislators, especially
because of the presence of academicians in the House," he said.

Golkar recently announced it had recruited a group of
intellectuals to serve as its "team of experts" in the House.
They included legal expert Loebby Loqman, foreign expert Dewi
Fortuna Anwar, urban expert Anwar Ilmar, economist Umar Juoro,
Moslem scholar Komaruddin Hidayat and banker Nyoman Moena.

The other intellectuals are communications expert Bachtiar
Aly, political analyst Nazaruddin Syamsudin, rural sociology
expert La Ode Ida, former minister of mining and energy Subroto,
monetary economist Winarno Zain and psychiatrist Dadang Hawari.

The United Development Party and the tiny Indonesian
Democratic Party factions have yet to say whether they will also
recruit scholars for their own teams of experts.

Critical

Legowo said a political organization would be able to improve
its quality greatly if it maintained critical legislators.

The just concluded House term saw Golkar dismiss outspoken
legislator Bambang Warih Koesoemo in 1995, the Armed Forces fire
Sembiring Meliala in the same year and the United Development
Party also let Sri Bintang Pamungkas go.

Separately, Riswandha Imawan of Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada
University said in Semarang yesterday that the newly inducted
House legislators could follow in the footsteps of their
predecessors from the late 1960s.

He said an individual legislator in the early stage of the New
Order was given the right to question the President.

"Many say the House at that time was the best representative
body Indonesia ever had," he said.

He praised the new House for recruiting many experts, but it
remained a big question whether they would act as representatives
of the public or their respective organizations. (amd/har)