Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – The House of Representatives wrapped up its first session for 2014 without accomplishing anything as a result of a month-long standoff between two rival coalitions in the legislative body.

The House is scheduled to hold a plenary meeting to officially end the current sitting on Friday when no proposal on the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) will be brought to the table.

The Prolegnas is a list of priority bills that the House, as well as the government, intend to pass during their five-year term in office.

"We can't properly work because lawmakers from the KIH [Great Indonesia Coalition] refuse to attend hearings and meetings," House Deputy Speaker Agus Hermanto of the Democratic Party said.

Other lawmakers from the opposition Red-and-White Coalition also put the blame for the House's poor performance squarely on politicians from the ruling Great Indonesia Coalition.

Great Indonesia Coalition lawmakers meanwhile defended their absence from meetings as a form of resistance to what they called the Red-and-White Coalition's authoritarian leadership.

"How can we fight for the people's interests if we are shut out of the decision-making process? This is the reason why we demanded the amendment of the [Legislative Institution] MD3 Law," Arief Wibowo from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said, referring to Law No. 17/2014 on legislative institutions, which stipulates, among others, the mechanism to select the House speaker and deputy speakers, as well as leaders of the House's 16 internal bodies, all of which are controlled by the Red-and-White Coalition.

In spite of a pact signed last month to end the standoff, the confrontation continued with the two camps refusing to give any concessions.

For the House to be able to work properly, negotiators representing both coalitions achieved an agreement to include lawmakers from political parties within the Great Indonesia Coalition in the chairmanship of the House's internal bodies through an amendment to the MD3 Law by the end of House's current session tomorrow.

The deliberation on the amendment at the House's Legislation Body (Baleg), however, has been put on hold pending the result of the Golkar Party national congress. Golkar controls the largest number of lawmakers in the Red-and-White Coalition.

Of the total 314 seats that the Red-and-White Coalition secured in the House, 91 belong to Golkar, while the rest are distributed among the Gerindra Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party, which controls 61 seats, meanwhile declined to officially announce its stance, although on many occasions the faction has thrown its weight behind the Red-and-White Coalition.

The Golkar Party central board has banned party members from joining any discussions about the planned amendment at the House during the national congress and will only return to the House after Dec. 5. As of Thursday, the House had yet to start deliberations on the amendment of the MD3 Law.

With its failure to formulate the prolegnas and start deliberations, so far, the House has only completed the fit-and-proper test for the two final candidates to fill the deputy chairman position at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to replace retiring KPK commissioner Busyro Muqqodas.

The House's Commission III overseeing law and human rights, which had been tasked with conducting the fit-and-proper test, however, decided to delay the vote for the two final candidates – incumbent Busyro and Roby Arya Brata, an academic and former Cabinet Secretariat staff member in the previous administration, until the House resumes sitting on Jan. 12 next year after a one month recess.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/05/house-gets-nothing-done-first-session.html