Slack legislators delay House plenary meetings

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta

The House of Representatives (DPR) failed to a hold a plenary meeting on Monday because less than half of its members showed up.

The legislators were slated to endorse last week's House selection of Miranda S. Goeltom as senior deputy governor of Bank Indonesia.

The House has become notorious for a high absenteeism rate, but Monday was new low for plenary sessions, with only 213 members showing up out of 497 House members.

The latest failure came just five days after the House's deliberation body (Bamus) failed to convene last Thursday due also to poor attendance.

It was the 16th Bamus meeting that failed to take place in the past year alone.

"I'm really upset by this problem. The House members should demonstrate to the public their sincere desire to perform well, especially at the end of their term in office," said deputy House speaker Tosari Widjaja of the United Development Party (PPP) faction who presided over the abortive meeting.

The plenary meeting was also supposed to endorse the replacement of a member of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR). Tosari said that the endorsement would be delayed until at least June 21.

He suggested that leaders of all nine factions in the House take the initiative to improve the situation by replacing their "lazy" members. He said their poor performance had affected the entire image of the House.

Tosari's wishes will not likely be fulfilled as not even all faction leaders showed up on Monday. Tjahjo Kumolo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Achmad Sumargono of the Crescent Star Party (PBB) were among the absent legislators.

The poor attendance of the legislators had been blamed for the failure of the House to fulfill its legislation target in every two-month sitting period.

With less than three months left before a new group of legislators takes over, there are more than 40 bills backlogged that need to be endorsed.

According to Tosari, the House leaders and the leaders of nine factions would meet on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of making public the names of the truant legislators.

"The lazy legislators must be at least 'morally punished' by the people. This will make clear distinctions between the lazy legislators and the hard-working ones," he said, adding that several legislators were currently working on as key campaign strategists for presidential candidates.

Separately, head of the House's plenary meeting bureau Achmad Juned said that this current spate of absenteeism was a new record for the House of Representatives (DPR).

"It is the first House plenary meeting that failed to reach a quorum," he said.

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Factions        Seats  Presence  Percentage

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PDI-P            152         53          34%  

Golkar           120         41          34%

PPP               57         23          40%

PKB               56         23          41% 

Reform (PAN, PK)  41         18          43%

Military/Police   38         35          92%

PBB               13          7          53% 

KKI               11          6          54%

PDU                9          7          77%

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              497        213  ----------

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