Unruliness at the House seems order of the day

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)