Letter of complaint: House of Representatives legislator Syarifuddin Suding (right), from the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura), submits a letter of protest to the House’s honors council vice chairman, Nudirman Munir, on Monday. The letter alleges that the House leadership broke regulations by meeting privately with the sole National Police chief candidate. JP/Wendra Ajistyatama

The leadership consists of House speaker Marzuki Alie from the Democratic Party and his four deputies — the Golkar Party’s Priyo Budi Santoso, Pramono Anung from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Anis Matta from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), and Taufik Kurniawan from the National Mandate Party (PAN).

The legislators, including Syarifuddin Suding from the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura), Golkar’s Bambang Soesatyo and PDI-P’s Eva Kusuma Sundari, argued that the speakers had violated the House’s code of ethics by holding a closed-door meeting with the sole candidate for the National Police chief post, Comr. Gen. Timur Pradopo, before his fit-and-proper test before the commission. Timur is expected to undergo the test Thursday.

“It is not normal for the speakers to have a meeting with a candidate before a fit-and-proper test,” Suding told reporters at the House in Senayan, South Jakarta, on Monday.

“They [the speakers] acted as if the candidate had already been chosen by the House,” he added.

Suding said the honors board must examine the leadership’s actions based on the laws on the People’s Consultative Assembly, the House of Representatives, the House of Regional Representatives and the Regional Representatives Council.

“I also hope the board will be able to reveal the motives behind the meeting,” Suding said.

Previously, the legislators signed a vote of no confidence in Marzuki’s leadership following the speakers’ meeting with Timur.

Marzuki called the legislators’ move “wild”, adding that they had overreacted to a normal friendly greet-and-meet occasion between the speakers and Timur.

Bambang said Marzuki’s judgement was in error. “This is not a wild maneuver, the commission leadership appreciates our move as an exercising of our constitutional right to take corrective actions,” he said.

Bambang said Marzuki must be held accountable because he was the House speaker.

“If he [Marzuki] is a gentleman, then he will resign voluntarily,” Bambang said.

One of the honor board members, Golkar Party’s Nudirman Munir, said the report would be followed up as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Marzuki said the legislators had treated him unfairly by putting the blame on him for inviting Timur for a meeting. “The decision to invite and meet the National Police chief candidate was a collective call made by all the speakers,” he said.

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