Ria Latifa banks on common sense

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Legislator Dwi Ria Latifa was nobody until September last year when she initiated a motion of no-confidence in House Speaker Akbar Tandjung who had been convicted of misusing Rp 40 billion belonging to the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

Her call for Akbar to relinquish the respected post was brave when most of her fellow legislators remained silent.

Ria Latifa even took a move legislators were reluctant to do. She walked out of a plenary meeting in November last year because the meeting was presided over by Akbar, the chairman of Golkar, the country's second largest political party, after Akbar's conviction was upheld by the Jakarta High Court.

"It is an irony that after endorsing a bill on the commission for corruption eradication, we, the legislators, still recognize the leadership of a House Speaker who is convicted of corruption," Ria Latifa of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-Perjuangan) said before walking out.

She had been campaigning for support for the motion of no- confidence in Akbar's leadership. The target was clear: Akbar's dismissal.

Up to now, however, the outcome of the motion remains uncertain.

The latest decision of the House's steering committee was, however, hopeful. The motion to unseat Akbar would be brought to a plenary meeting on Feb. 27 and each House faction would be given the opportunity to deliver its response to the motion.

Her maneuver, with the support of at least 68 inter-faction legislators, has angered her political opponents. It prompted leaders of the House of Representatives (DPR) to hold a closed- door meeting, especially to respond to the motion.

The House leaders concluded there were no regulations to dismiss a House speaker.

A disappointed Ria Latifa believed that most of the politicians were reluctant to unseat Akbar. Although the majority of legislators advised Akbar to be non-active on moral grounds, only a few of them took action to force him aside.

Realizing the persistent challenge from fellow legislators, Ria Latifa called for the establishment of a disciplinary council to examine whether Akbar was still eligible to keep his post.

Born in Tanjung Balai Karimun, Riau, in 1966, Ria Latifa acknowledged that not all her fellow politicians, including her PDI Perjuangan colleagues, were happy with her maneuver.

She said some politicians from Golkar had been trying to halt her motion against Akbar.

The politicians, Latifa said, had repeatedly lobbied her to stop the motion. "But it is normal. I try to convince them to follow the drum I beat too."

Asked whether her family criticized her political stance, the wife of Helmy Fauzi and the mother of two sons, Genta Rizkie La Musa and Tan Jenar Kibar Lantang, said her family was concerned about her habit of always being late home for dinner.

Although her motion against Akbar was highly published by the media, her biggest decision was actually when she joined in the lawyers team for Megawati's then Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) following the forcible take-over of the party's headquarters on July 27, 1996.

"My family was terrorized by repeated threats on the phone," Ria Latifa recalled.

The July 27 violence occurred when Megawati's supporters, who stayed at PDI headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta, were attacked by security forces and supporters of Soerjadi, Megawati's rival who was backed by president Soeharto's government.

Megawati had been elected chairwoman of the party in place of Soerjadi at a congress in Surabaya earlier that year, but Soerjadi's camp held a breakaway, government-backed congress that moved him back to the party's helm.

Following the July 27 incident which claimed dozens of lives, Megawati persistently tried to maintain her leadership through a legal battle. Ria Latifa was one of the lawyers grouped in the Team of Indonesian Democracy Defenders (TPDI) who fought for Megawati.

Ria Latifa also took the opportunity to become the lawyer for East Timorese leader Jose Alexandre Xanana Gusmao, labor leader Muhtar Pakpahan, and playwright Ratna Sarumpaet at a time when president Soeharto was on top of his iron-fist rule.

Ria Latifa emphasized that the situation during Soeharto's era was far harder than the current time.

She said all her activities had worn out much of her energy, therefore she sometimes needed time to relax.

The best time for her to relax is visiting the traditional markets of Mayestik in South Jakarta, and a small traditional market near her residence in Pondok Aren, Tangerang.

"I also like singing and playing guitar," she said.

Ria Latifa admits she is not genuinely a politician. She was a lawyer and had been trying to be a professional one. She helped a women's magazine in legal advocacy when her senior colleague Tumbu Saraswati asked her to join in the legal team for Megawati's PDI after the July 27 incident which claimed a number of lives.

Her political career began in 1999 when the executive board of PDI-Perjuangan -- a new name for Megawati's PDI -- asked her to join the party and gave her a place on the list of the party's legislative candidates.

She entered the House only to fill in the vacant seat left by Megawati who was elected vice president in 1999, but her ample experience as a lawyer and her common sense have helped her perform beyond her term as a politician.