Soeharto happy to open course for legislators
Soeharto happy to open course for legislators
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto has agreed to open a crash
course for the next 500 members of the House of Representatives
on Aug. 9 at the State Palace, State Minister of Special
Assignments Harmoko announced yesterday.
After meeting Soeharto at the Bina Graha presidential office,
Harmoko said the President would share his experience with the
future legislators while opening the six-day course.
The course will be held at the Bogor presidential palace in
West Java. The future legislators will be divided into five study
groups of 100.
The first group will attend the six-day course from Aug. 10 to
Aug. 15. The second will start on Aug. 19, and the final groups
will begin in the following weeks.
Two major agendas will interrupt the course, with President
Soeharto delivering a state-of-the-nation address on the eve of
the Independence Day on Aug. 16.
Harmoko said discussions would be the only thing on the
government-organized course's agenda.
"The format will be 100 percent discussion and avoid the use
of lectures and monologue speech. This is not an indoctrination,
a sort of course on Pancasila state ideology nor the government's
attempt to compel, dictate and influence legislators," he said.
Harmoko reported to the President yesterday about preparations
for the course. Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono and chairman
of the Pancasila propagation agency, Alwi Dahlan, accompanied
Harmoko at the meeting.
The government is holding the course to help the future
legislators, who will begin their term on Oct. 1, improve their
ability to articulate people's aspirations and improve their
social control. Soeharto has said that the course is not
compulsory.
House legislators have been widely criticized for allegedly
rubber stamping government policies.
Harmoko said course materials and moderators had been prepared
by the Pancasila propagation agency, but would be discussed with
a steering committee of representatives of the three political
parties and the Armed Forces.
The study groups would vary to let legislators from different
factions get to know each other, Harmoko said.
Golkar, the runaway winner in the May 29 election, will field
325 legislators in the course, the United Development Party 89
and the Indonesian Democratic Party 11. The Armed Forces, whose
members do not vote, will have 75 representatives.
Harmoko, also Golkar's chairman, said he would be among those
attending the course.
"I must abide by the party's decision (that obliges all its
legislators to join the course)," he said.
Harmoko, who topped the list of Golkar legislative candidates
from West Java, has been tipped as the strongest candidate for
the House speaker post. (06/amd)