Irawaty Wardany and Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Jakarta/Malang – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono inaugurated six of seven new members of the General Election Commission (KPU) at the State Palace on Tuesday.
Attending the ceremony were Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Cabinet ministers and leaders of state institutions such as House of Representatives Speaker Agung Laksono.
"The President received seven names submitted by the House of Representatives but will inaugurate only six of them," Home Affairs Minister Mardiyanto told reporters at a press conference before the ceremony.
The six are Abdul Hafiz Anshary, Sri Nuryanti, Endang Sulastri, I Gusti Putu Artha, Andi Nurpati and Abdul Aziz.
The seventh member, Syamsul Bahri, currently a suspect in a corruption case in Malang, East Java, has been told to settle "his personal problems first," said Mardiyanto.
The election of Samsul as a KPU member created a controversy because soon after the House voted for him, the Attorney General's Office announced that Samsul was a suspect in a corruption case involving the development of a sugar industrial area, in which Syamsul was head consultant.
Syamsul, a professor of agriculture at Brawijaya University, sent a letter to the President asking that his inauguration be postponed.
Mardiyanto said the President has ordered Attorney General Hendarman Supandji to speed up the investigation of Syamsul's case. Hendarman said the prosecutors had questioned Syamsul at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. "I hope the dossier will be complete today (Tuesday) so we can start the prosecution next week," he said.
Separately, deputy chairman of House Commission II overseeing home affairs, Idrus Marham, said that the House agreed with the president's decision to install only six KPU members.
"The (2007 General Elections) Law does not ban installing (only) six members of the KPU," he said as quoted by detik.com newsportal Tuesday. Besides, he added, considering the KPU's heavy work load, it needed new members as soon as possible.
Idrus further said that the commission has decided to discuss Syamsul's case after the House resumes on Nov. 5. "We will discuss it in the commission after recess, but we should clarify his legal status first," he said.
He added that the postponement of Samsul's inauguration did not mean that the commission would replace him with another candidate.
Meanwhile, legal consultancy chairman at the People's Service Institution of Bridge University, Adami Chazawi, said the case involving Samsul had been exaggerated and he had not yet been named a suspect.
"This is just an administrative error because Pak Samsul as the chairman of the consultancy of the project at that time did his job properly and we can prove that," he said.