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maneuver at the House of Representatives will unlikely lead to the ouster of Vice President Boediono but rather serve as a political bargaining chip in anticipation of a possible Cabinet reshuffle, observers have said.

Political analyst Hanta Yuda said political parties were using the Bank Century bailout issue to get concessions in any Cabinet reshuffle.

“They are targeting [to benefit from] the Cabinet reshuffle,” Hanta said during a discussion in Jakarta on Saturday.

He was referring to speculation that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was considering another Cabinet reshuffle in an effort to boost his administration’s performance before his tenure ends in less than two years.

Hanta emphasized the political maneuver was also being used to distract the public from several graft scandals implicating politicians and lawmakers.

“The maneuver also serves as a bargaining chip for [suppressing the] political scandals [implicating lawmakers] … We have documented the details of every case implicating nine factions in the House,” he added.

Meanwhile, law practitioner Alexander Lay said lawmakers had resurrected the Bank Century bailout issue and floated the idea of impeaching Boediono through a no-confidence motion simply to lift their bargaining positions.

He said the Bank Century bailout took place in 2008, yet they were only now busily talking about it three years later.

“For three years, we’ve been hearing brouhaha regarding this, but they’ve never taken any concrete steps. We never heard about the 25 of them recommending the move to the House,” Alexander said at the discussion.

Both Hanta and Alexander were commenting on several lawmakers who are proposing a no-confidence motion against Boediono, whom they said should be held accountable for the controversial Rp 6.7 trillion (US$697.19 million) bailout of Bank Century in 2008. Boediono was the Bank Indonesia governor at the time.

The no-confidence motion has been fully supported by the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura), which has 17 seats in the House. Some politicians from the Golkar Party, a member of the ruling government coalition, have thrown their weight behind the idea. Meanwhile, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the United Development Party (PPP) are taking a wait-and-see stance.

However, Hanta noted the no-confidence motion was unlikely to come to pass as it required approval from a majority of the 560 lawmakers.

A no-confidence motion may also conclude the President and/or Vice President violated the Constitution. If such were the case, the House could ask the Constitutional Court to issue a ruling in favor of or against the House’s motion.

Since only Hanura and some Golkar politicians support the no-confidence motion, it is unlikely the maneuver will gain traction.

The proposal, Alexander said, would be rejected by a significant number of lawmakers from the Democratic Party and coalition parties.

“In a vote, the Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party [PAN]and the National Awakening Party [PKB] never walk different paths,” he said, adding that the three parties represented 222 lawmakers in total.

Responding to public skepticism, Hanura lawmaker Akbar Faisal stated his party would immediately propose the idea after obtaining sufficient endorsement.

“We have garnered support from around 100 lawmakers. We are still trying to collect support from two-thirds of the lawmakers [as stipulated in the Constitution],” he said during the discussion. (yps)