Soeharto encourages solid House

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives should be on equal footing with the President, given the former's duty to oversee the implementation of development programs by the latter, according to President Soeharto.

Soeharto said before the newly installed House of Representatives and People's Consultative Assembly members that the country needed a strong government as well as solid representative bodies in order to deal with future challenges and opportunities.

"To face increasingly complicated challenges of the future, we must have legislative and executive institutions which function at optimum," Soeharto said.

"Our founding fathers wanted not only a strong presidential institution but an equally strong House of Representatives," he added.

However, he insisted that top state institutions alone were not enough to run the country. He said Indonesia also needed political, economic, sociocultural and defense-security infrastructures that worked well.

"Political and mass organizations, economic institutions, artists, literati, and even groups or individuals deserve adequate room to develop their creativity and initiative," he said.

The President reminded the state administrative branches -- the legislative, executive and judicial -- of the people's rising demands.

"They (the people) have become more aware of their rights and obligations. They are also very straightforward in their demand for well-functioning administrative institutions," he said.

Soeharto asked the institutions to accommodate, process and relay any public aspirations and interests which he said were vastly different from those in previous decades.

He called on the new legislators to take action and meet the demands that their voters conveyed to them during the general election campaign in May.

Logic

Wahono, who ended his term on Tuesday as speaker of the House for the 1992/1997 period, shared Soeharto's view. He said a House and government which were equally strong would fit the constitutional "logic".

"The 1945 Constitution suggests a strong government as well as a strong House of Representatives," Wahono said.

He dismissed allegations that the House under his leadership failed to live up to the constitution's stipulation. He conceded, however, that the legislative body had not fully exercised its constitutional rights.

"We did not exercise our rights because we thought it was not necessary to do that," Wahono said.

Golkar chairman Harmoko welcomed Soeharto's suggestion that the new House legislators take more initiative while conducting their legislative and budgetary rights.

The 1945 Constitution says the President holds the authority to make laws together with the House. The New Order administration has seen 375 government-supported bills deliberated in the House, but there has not been any single bill initiated by the House.

Constitutional law expert Yusril Ihza Mahendra, an Assembly member, said he was doubtful that the House would be able to stand on equal footing with the President.

"Nepotism has hampered the House in its effort to achieve its best performance," Yusril of the University of Indonesia said.

Half of the 1,000 Assembly members are House legislators.

The House is made up of 325 Golkar legislators, 89 representatives of the United Development Party (PPP) and 11 representatives of the Indonesian Democratic Party based on the general election results. The remaining 75 seats were reserved for the Armed Forces whose members do not vote.

The other 500 seats in the Assembly have been distributed to the three poll contestants, the Armed Forces, regional representatives and presidentially appointed figures representing various mass organizations, institutions and professions.

Shortly after the induction ceremony, the Assembly kicked off its first general session to endorse its internal rules, draw up a schedule of sessions and form a working committee.

The Assembly's 90-strong working committee will prepare a draft of State Policy Guidelines and other stipulations to be endorsed in the second general session in March. The March session will also elect a president and vice president for the 1998/2003 term.

Separately, the House proceeded with its first plenary session to endorse its internal rules, the schedule of House sessions and the four factions in the House.

The plenary session was jointly presided over by the House's oldest legislator, Arsyad Pana of PPP, and the youngest one, Liliek Herawati of Golkar.

Both the House and the Assembly are scheduled to elect a speaker and deputy speakers today. The House speaker used to double as chairperson of the Assembly on grounds of efficiency as it convenes only once -- if the October and March sessions are considered to be one package -- every five years. (team)