Unruliness at the House seems order of the day

JAKARTA (JP): An interruption from the rank and file of the legislature would have been unthinkable a few years ago, but that has quickly become a thing of the past as "anything goes" seems to be the order of today's House of Representatives.

The free-for-all mentality was apparent on Wednesday when the House, which was once called by a "kindergarten" by President Abdurrahman Wahid, convened a plenary session to decide whether to call a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly.

The session soon became mired in heated debate on administrative issues causing brief adjournments, taking up most of the morning session.

Desperate to save the President's political life, members of Abdurrahman's National Awakening Party (PKB) barraged the session with a number of technical issues.

They wasted no time in unleashing their attacks with PKB member Rodjil Gufron firing the first shot only seconds after House Deputy Speaker Soetardjo Soerjoguritno banged his gavel to open the session at around 9:30 a.m.

Rodjil questioned the validity of Soetardjo's appointment saying that House Speaker Akbar Tandjung, who sat next to Soetardjo, should preside over the session.

Tension in the room rose when another PKB member, Ali Maskur Musa, left his seat and approached the House leadership desk to file a protest.

Apparently his microphone was not working and he felt it necessary to express his protest up front.

A flurry of counter objections from the floor against Ali's move forced Soetardjo, a veteran politician from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), to adjourn the session for 10 minutes.

The 10 minute period passed and PKB members still fervently appealed to the floor to replace Soetardjo with Akbar, but to no avail as a majority in the room were against the move.

After some unsuccessful attempts to raise the same issue again, PKB then tried their luck by switching to a letter from Attorney General Marzuki Darusman clearing the President of any involvement in the financial scandals dubbed Bulogate and Bruneigate.

PKB members maintained that impeachment proceedings against the President should be halted as the President had been cleared of alleged corruption.

Prolonged arguments forced Soetardjo to adjourn the session again for a second time.

The impasse was then resolved through a vote. An overwhelming 426 legislators agreed to continue the proceedings and ignore Marzuki's letter.

During the evening, PKB members again tried to stall the vote for convening a special session of the Assembly by raising a House membership issue.

But eventually the PKB faction's minority voice was drowned out and all 51 members walked out.(byg/dja)