The powerful House

The powerful House

The House of Representatives (DPR) will soon be the most powerful institution in this country.

It will have the authority to hold hostage whoever ignores its summons to "clarify certain issues" which they may be unhappy with, for the sake of national interests.

The authority is regulated in a bill on the structure and position of the DPR, People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), and provincial legislative bodies (DPRD), which has just been endorsed into law.

It is understandable that during the Old Order (Sukarno era) and the New Order (Soeharto era), the DPR had failed to perform its function to the fullest.

According to a number of legislators, the objective of the bill is to make the DPR more powerful and more reliable so that it would be respected by all components of the state.

However, the goal might be difficult to achieve because the DPR could not be turned into a reliable legislative body by giving it the right through overall improvement.

For the DPR to achieve overall improvement, it should first meet the interests of the people. Second, it should be absolutely clean from all practices of collusion, corruption and nepotism (KKN), and third, it should prioritize national interests above all else. -- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta

-- Chicago Tribune,