(Jakarta Post) House peace talks stall

12/12/2018

Peace talks between the two rival coalitions at the House of Representatives have once again broken down, with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-I)-led Great Indonesia Coalition making a new demand as a condition for sealing a power sharing deal with the rival Red-and-White Coalition.

Negotiators representing both coalitions had agreed to hold a plenary meeting to officiate the agreement, which included assigning Great Indonesia Coalition lawmakers to 21 of the 64 leadership posts at the House.

The meeting however, which was scheduled for Thursday, was cancelled after members of the Great Indonesia Coalition made the fresh demand.

In addition to an earlier request for leadership positions in the House’s 16 internal bodies, including its 11 commissions, the Great Indonesia Coalition made a new demand to include a change in lawmakers’ rights, in particular in relation to questioning the government, as stipulated in the 2014 Legislative Institutions (MD3) Law and a House internal regulation.

Lawmakers from the Great Indonesia Coalition argued that existing stipulations on the matter in both pieces of legislation could be easily abused to disrupt President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration, which would eventually lead to Jokowi’s impeachment.

“The existing stipulations are too authoritarian. We are not aiming to abolish the rights of lawmakers, but we must reformulate a way to exercise them to avoid abuse of power,” lawmaker Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat, who leads the NasDem Party faction at the House, said on Thursday.

In a separate interview, secretary-general of the National Awakening Party (PKB) Abdul Kadir Karding concurred with Victor and emphasized such a revision would be key to sealing the deal.

“It’s non-negotiable because it’s important for the country. It’s much more important than the agreement recently reached regarding leadership positions within the House’s bodies,” he said.

Besides NasDem and the PKB, other members within the Great Indonesia Coalition, including the Hanura Party and the United Development Party (PPP), demanded the House to revise articles 73, 74 and 98 of the MD3 Law and Article 60 of the internal regulation, which all upheld the rights of lawmakers and the method of exercising them.

Article 73 of the MD3 Law, for example, allows lawmakers to summon government officials to question them on relevant issues.

According to the article, the House can summon government officials by force if they refuse to respond to the summons three times.

Meanwhile, Article 98 of the law obliges government officials to obey any decisions reached by House commissions during meetings and requires the President to punish officials that fail to do so.

Article 60 of the House’s internal regulation has similar stipulations.

“We must reformulate such stipulations to ensure that they won’t be abused to unfairly attack the government. Trust us on this. The House is already a very powerful institution without those regulations. They grant the House even stronger power,” Abdul Kadir of the PKB said.

Meanwhile, negotiators from the majority Red-and-White Coalition rejected the demands, arguing that the rights of lawmakers were consistent with the Constitution.

“We’ve just learned of this. We’ve already agreed to share 21 leadership positions with them. Let’s see what we can do about this one. We will conduct a further study to carefully examine it,” said the coalition’s spokesperson, Idrus Marham of the Golkar Party.

Idrus, however, expressed confidence that the standoff could be settled by Dec. 5 before the House started its month-long recess.

House Deputy Speaker Fadli Zon of the Gerindra Party was cynical about the new proposal from the Great Indonesia Coalition.

“We see nothing important about revising lawmakers’ rights. We’ve given one and they asked for more,” said Fadli.

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(Jakarta Post) House peace talks stall