Another Danger to Democracy Coming From the DPR

[fastpitch17]

According to a proposal drafted by the MPR assessment agency, a team jointly established by the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) and four political party factions at the House of Representatives, two options are available to allow for the change: amending the constitution to grant the MPR the authority to issue the guidelines through an MPR decree, or inserting the concept of GBHN-like guidelines into an article of the 1945 Constitution.

]The two largest political factions at the House, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Golkar Party, back the first proposal."
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/08/24/mpr-plan-comes-under-fire.html

 

[Davita]

RE; Post #1

Seems like a 4th shot for Megawati to regain power as she has, so far, proved...
1. Incapable of being elected. 2. Incapable of being a puppeteer. 3. Incapable of producing offspring that are efficient lawmakers.

 

[William King]

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.901961)]“The president and vice president are directly elected by the people. They present their vision and mission to the people. So why should they have to follow the guidelines made by the MPR?” party deputy chairman Syarifuddin Hasan asked.


[/COLOR]

 

[fastpitch17]

These lawmakers have pretty much proven over the course of time that money can easily buy most of them and they seek office to have access to money. Put the constitution in their hands and you can kiss it good by completely. The Islamist already try to run shotgun over the constitution and this will open the door to even more influence over the constitution. We already know how politicians fear being called a bad muslin.

 

[Scooterindo]

RE; Post #1

Seems like a 4th shot for Megawati to regain power as she has, so far, proved...
1. Incapable of being elected. 2. Incapable of being a puppeteer. 3. Incapable of producing offspring that are efficient lawmakers.

You forgot incapable of being a decent president -

 

[Tupai Hitam]

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/08/24/mpr-plan-comes-under-fire.html

Link not loading at present. Instead The Jakarta Post provides this infantile message:

WHOoOPSIE!
We apologized that you have reached this page.
One of our servers might have just overload and you're there unluckily.
If refreshing the page didn't solve the issue, you might wait for a moment and get a coffee.

I don't like to speak ill of The Jakarta Post because it has a good heart, but it needs to stop trying to be cool because the "Whooopsie" stuff and bad grammar make it look really dumb.

As for reviving the GBHN (Broad Outlines of State Policy, which were broken down into 5-year development plans called Repelita), it's a Suharto era relic. Indonesia now has the RPJPN (Long-Term National Development Plan - 20 yrs) and the RPJMN (Medium-Term National Development Plan - 5 yrs) and numerous RENSTRA and other bureaucratic acronyms that all absorb state funds. Adding another level of "development guidelines bureaucracy" is unlikely to accelerate national development.

The GBHN, in theory, is great. Continuity for development. Or there could be a GBHN to have all corrupt legislators and civil servants shot. But if the aim is to give the MPR (read: bunch of crooked, self-serving scum) the right to impeach the president (on the spurious grounds of failing to implement any aspect of the GBHN) that would be detrimental to democracy and direct elections. Much better if the DPR instead focuses on its own mental revolution, perhaps by having its members guillotined and replaced by hamsters.

 

[Davita]

Re; Post # 6

I just tried the link and it works fine.

 

[Tupai Hitam]

Re: post #7

Yes, it's back online. Was down earlier:

 

[atlantis]

I don't like to speak ill of The Jakarta Post because it has a good heart, but it needs to stop trying to be cool because the "Whooopsie" stuff and bad grammar make it look really dumb.

You're a good man Tupai. At least more civil than me.
I usually don't hesitate to say that they print a lot of unverified crap which have them appearing anything but professional. I've stopped reading it daily long ago and now I only occasionally click on proposed link and most often regret it.

 

[Tupai Hitam]

I usually don't hesitate to say that they print a lot of unverified crap which have them appearing anything but professional. I've stopped reading it daily long ago and now I only occasionally click on proposed link and most often regret it.

Some of their online content is garbage. "The top five lipsticks in Indonesia" (an advertorial masquerading as news). Sponsored content should be labeled as such. They may have fixed that problem recently.
They have a whole bunch of reporters and editors and foreign subeditors, so their content is usually good. But sometimes mistakes are lifted from other sources and repeated, or things are mangled in lazy translation and careless editing. There are bound to be mistakes when deadlines are tight. Their opinion pieces are often good, and they really do have a good heart (in 2014 having an editorial saying "We are pro-Jokowi and anti-Prabowo -- or something like that). The Wanandi brothers (owners) don't make any profit from the paper and could pull the plug on it, but they are happy to keep it going, as it gives them a voice and Indonesia would be poorer without the Post (in my opinion -- though Joe Rakyat would not lose any sleep over an English-language newspaper folding).

The Jakarta Globe, on the other hand, is now operating on a shoestring with a skeleton staff.