Powerful MPR ends last session

Powerful MPR ends last session

M. Taufiqurahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The members of the 1999-2004 People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)
ended their last annual session on Sunday, yielding substantial
regulations that would lay the foundation for the functioning of
the new Assembly early next month.

The four-day session was the final annual meeting for the
current Assembly which was set up before the amendment of the
1945 Constitution, consisting of elected members from political
parties and non-elected members from the Indonesian Military and
the National Police, functional groups and regional
representatives.

The MPR plenary meeting enacted several substantial
regulations -- concerning its internal regulations and relations
with the new government -- that would serve as guidelines for the
new Assembly, slated for inauguration on Oct. 1.

Among the internal regulations was that the new Assembly will
have the authority to rule on a proposal from the House of
Representatives on the impeachment of the president.

However, the road to impeachment would be a tortuous one as
the House must present a strong case against the president's
wrongdoings, which would later be adjudicated by the
Constitutional Court, Article 4 of the MPR Decree on internal
regulations stipulates.

The long, winding road to an impeachment was one of
indications that the future Assembly will no longer stand as the
supreme state institution, but simply a high state institution,
at the same level as the House and the Regional Representatives
Council (DPD).

The Assembly will only form when the House and the DPD join in
a session at least once in five years to perform its
constitutional role.

Other roles for the new Assembly are to amend and enact
articles in the Constitution, to install the elected president
and vice president, and decide who will fill the two positions
should they be left vacant.

All factions in the current Assembly agreed on articles
detailing the roles, saying that such functions had been mandated
by the amended Constitution.

MPR member Chozin Chumaidy said that during a closed-door
meeting, representatives from all factions had unanimously
accepted such an authority.

"We were engaged in a tense debate only when deciding the
mechanism to elect the speaker and three deputies for the
Assembly," he told The Jakarta Post.

All factions finally agreed that in the selection of the MPR
speaker, both the House and the DPD will be given an equal chance
to nominate three candidates.

"A plenary meeting will then hold voting and the candidate
with the most votes will assume the speakership, while the three
who receive the highest number of votes aside from the speaker
will be declared deputy speakers," he said.

The plenary session also decided to set up an Assembly
honorary council that will be tasked with probing alleged
violations of the Assembly's internal regulations and code of
ethics.

"This is a historic decision, as it is the first time in more
than 50 years that we will have an honorary body to uphold ethics
and discipline among the MPR members," said Aisyah Amini,
chairwoman of the subcommission responsible for deliberating the
internal regulations on the body.

The Assembly also agreed on the DPD internal regulations,
under which its chairperson would be directly elected by the
council members.

However, the current Assembly's hard work could easily be
thrashed by the new Assembly, which will mostly consist of new
faces.

"Members of the new Assembly may not use what we have drawn
up. But at least we have provided some foundations for what they
will do in the first days in office," Chozin said.