Markus Junianto Sihaloho – A petition to get the House of Representatives to push ahead with the use of its so called right to express an opinion, the first step to impeaching the vice president, had garnered 106 signatures, a lawmaker said on Friday.
The petition was initiated by five lawmakers who, with four others, pushed for the House inquiry into the Bank Century bailout. It is expected they will get a further 184 signatures before it is submitted to the House leadership, said Maruarar Sirait, a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
Maruarar said 67 of the signatories were from his party, 20 from the Golkar Party, 17 from the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and one each from the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).
"We will keep distributing this petition to all lawmakers, no matter from which faction they come from. We are optimistic in getting 300 signatures," Maruarar said.
The petition needed only 25 signatures for the House leadership to bring it for discussion at a plenary meeting.
Asked what the motivation was for initiating the petition, Maruarar said it was because it was feared the whole bailout controversy would be shoved under the carpet following allegedly secret agreements between political parties and the government.
"We want to show Indonesian people that it's not true that the Century case is closed following political deals," Marurar said. "By this movement, we want to tell people of our existence. Yes, it's not an easy step, but we will struggle on."
Lily Wahid, a lawmaker from the National Awakening Party (PKB), which is siding with the government, urged colleagues in her faction to sign the petition. Lily said almost all PKB constituents she had visited wanted the party to push for the right to express opinion.
"If PKB sticks with its current stance of supporting the government without settling the Century case, then it can never hope to get significant number of voters supporting it in the 2014 election," Lily said.
So far, the United Development Party (PPP) and PKB have banned their lawmakers from signing the petition. The Democratic Party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), and the National Mandate Party (PAN) are expected to do the same.
PKB faction chairman Marwan Jaffar confirmed on Friday that his party had issued a letter prohibiting its members from signing the petition and calling on those who already had to remove their signatures.
"We have formed a special team to meet with Lily Wahid to talk about this matter," he said. But Lily said she had no intention of withdrawing her signature from the petition.
Separately, Hanura chairman Abdilla Fauzi Achmad said his party supported all legal and political steps to settle the Century bailout saga.
"Law enforcers are investigating the case, the House of Representative is establishing a monitoring team, and some lawmakers are signing a petition to push the right to express an opinion. All of it must be conducted at the same time," Abdilla said.