Anita Rachman & Muninggar Sri Saraswati – Despite the House of Representatives having issued its final recommendations on the Bank Century bailout and law-enforcement agencies commencing their own investigations, there still appears to be a chance that parties may initiate proceedings to impeach Vice President Boediono and oust Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
Golkar Party lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo said on Wednesday that action against Boediono and Sri Mulyani might proceed if the government fails to back further investigation of the bailout in accordance with the House's recommendations.
"If the government is not serious, we could use our rights to express opinion," he said. "We have been trying not to use it as it will incite shock. But, if the government is not serious, what we can do?"
Ruling coalition partners the Golkar Party, Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and United Development Party (PPP), as well as opposition factions the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) all voted to declare the bailout illegal.
However, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono aggressively defended Boediono and Sri Mulyani in his official response to the House's recommendations.
The PDI-P said it was currently focusing on monitoring law-enforcement agencies to see if they implemented the House's recommendations but did not discount the possibility of calling for the impeachment of Boediono and the firing of Sri Mulyani.
"We are ready to go there," PDI-P lawmaker Eva Kusuma Sundari said. "But we have priorities. For the short term, our focus is upholding the House's recommendation while for the long term it is the impeachment."
Akbar Faisal, a Hanura lawmaker, said that his party would be consistent in its attempts to uncover the truth in the Bank Century case.
Ikrar Nusa Bakti, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), predicted that political tensions would not escalate in the near future.
"I think it is a cooling down period at the moment," he said, adding that the political parties were currently busy determining the future of the ruling coalition, which is led by Yudhoyono's Democratic Party
It was a difficult process to the call for an impeachment, Ikrar said. The first step would be House factions expressing their opinions, followed by a plenary meeting at which a House statement would be drawn up and then by a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), he said.
"It won't be easy," Ikrar said. "The Democratic Party faction and its coalition partners could easily skip the plenary session, and the quorum would never be met," he said.
If a plenary session did not get a quorum, the House would be unable to issue a statement, Ikrar said.