Slack legislators delay House plenary meetings
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
--------------------------------------------
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%
--------------------------------------------
497 213 ----------
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