The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 10/05/2009 1:24 PM  |  National

The countries' three lawmaking bodies - the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the House of Representatives, and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) - have already completed their leadership selections, and will now start their legistlative work..

The Assembly, which elected Taufik Kiemas from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) as speaker for the 2009-2014 term, has no official activities up to Oct. 20, according to its website.

The MPR is scheduled to officially inaugurate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from the Democratic Party and former Bank Indonesia governor Boediono as president and vice president respectively on Oct. 20.

This will be Yudhoyono's second term after winning the July 8 presidential election with a convincing win of more than 60 percent.

The House, responsible for producing laws and acting as a check and balance upon the executive branch, will begin its works Monday.

Chairman of the PDI-P faction at the House, Tjahyo Kumolo, told The Jakarta Post that most of the meetings in the first week would be internal faction meetings.

Nasir Jamil from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said lawmakers who did not hold any leadership position, whether in their respective factions or at the House level, were not obliged to attend these meetings.

"The meetings also aim to discuss working facilities for both the House members and leaders," he said.

Nasir also said that the discussion on the determination of commission leaders would be discussed during the upcoming meetings.

"Each faction has it own internal scoring mechanism to nominate a member to become a commission chairman," he said.

"The final decision on which commission leadership is allocated to a certain faction, would then be discussed in the lobbying sessions between the House factions."

As of now, the House has 11 commissions. Each commission specializes on a certain group of issues, such as defense, home affairs, justice, environment, infrastructure, finance, culture and education.

Each commission also has its working partners from government ministries and agencies.

For example, Commission I will work together with, among others, the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry during the deliberation of bills concerning security and foreign affairs issues.

Sebastian Salang from the Indonesian Parliamentary Watchdog (Formappi) said that having 11 commissions was not sufficient to ensure an effective and efficient working partnership between the House and the government.

"Sometimes one commission have to work with three, four or even seven working partners from the government," he said.

"The smaller number of commissions makes it difficult for House legislators to focus on their jobs."

He suggested the number of commissions should be increased, so lawmakers would have fewer working partners and be more focused.

However, PDI-P lawmaker Rieke Diyah Pitaloka said that the current number of commissions was sufficient and that there was no need to add more commissions as it would waste more of the state budget.

The DPD will begin its working period Monday after holding meetings to discuss the establishment of its administrative instruments, according to a schedule obtained by the Post. (hdt)