Indonesia's highest constitutional body opened its last annual session before the country's legislative system is reformed next year.
The 695-member People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), scheduled to meet until August 10, was to hear a report later Friday from President Megawati Sukarnoputri on the progress of her two-year-old administration. The MPR's mix of elected and appointed members currently choose Indonesia's president and vice-president but that role will fall to the Indonesian people next year when the country holds its first ever direct presidential elections.
That vote will follow general elections in April to select House of Representatives (DPR) legislators and members of a new chamber representing the country's districts.
"Through the democratic 2004 election it is hoped there will be formed a new government administration that is more legitimate and whose legislative members from the centre and the districts are more representative," MPR chairman Amien Rais said as he opened the session.
Members of the two newly-elected chambers will make up the MPR, which will continue to have the authority to alter Indonesia's constitution.
"After the 2004 election, the MPR will no longer enjoy as much power as it does now, thanks to its own work in amending the 1945 constitution," The Jakarta Post said in an editorial Friday.
During the current session, legislators are scheduled to discuss the formation of a commission to review the nation's constitution. They are also to consider a decree reviewing more than 100 earlier decisions passed by the assembly between 1960 and 2002.
Among those decisions is a 1967 ruling that formally removed presidential power from Megawati's father Sukarno. A proposal would have the ruling revoked. The draft MPR decree says it seeks to "rehabilitate the good name" of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president forced out after a failed 1965 coup attempt by dissident military members. Suharto, the general who crushed the revolt, gradually assumed Sukarno's powers amid mass killings that left hundreds of thousands of alleged communists dead.
Legislators are also proposing to revoke a decree banning the Communist Party but to maintain a ban on communism and Marxism-Leninism.
The MPR currently includes all 500 elected lower house members as well as appointed military and police representatives and delegates from interest groups and the regions. Only 552 legislators attended Friday's opening session which took place under heavy security.
Visitors passed through two airport-style metal detectors to enter the meeting hall, which was ringed by hundreds of rifle-toting police and soldiers. Five armoured vehicles were visible on the legislative grounds, where a bomb exploded on July 14. There were no injuries and have been no arrests.
Many of the legislators stay at a nearby five-star hotel during the session, which will cost Rp 20 billion (2.4 million dollars), according to the MPR's secretary-general Rahimullah, quoted in The Jakarta Post.