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)