The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the largest in the People's Consultative Assem-bly (MPR), rejected President B.J. Habibie's accountability speech yesterday, the Jakarta Post reported last night.
"Habibie's 16 months of administration has failed," the paper quoted a party spokesperson as saying.
Meanwhile, riot police used tear gas and batons yesterday to disperse thousands of anti-government demonstrators as the criticism mounted against Habibie and eroded his chances of being re-elected next week.
About 30 protesters were hospitalized and 10 policemen injured in clashes that closed the city's business district for hours.
Habibie frowned and took notes on the stage in the national legislature last night as disgruntled members of the 700-member MPR assailed his 16-month record.
Indonesia's highest lawmaking body will decide who will be Indonesia's head of state on Wednesday next week.
It is unclear what the outcome will be. The world's fourth most populous nation is now grappling with a difficult transition to democracy after decades of authoritarian rule under ex-President Suharto.
Habibie, Suharto's one-time prot?g?, is one of three presidential candidates, and he made an impassioned defense of his turbulent tenure to the legislators in an "accountability" speech Thursday night. He said he introduced democracy and saved Indonesia's battered economy.
But when the assembly reconvened yesterday, speaker after speaker attacked the president.
Within the next few days, the legislators will vote whether to accept or reject Habibie's speech. If they reject it, Habibie will have little choice but to withdraw his nomination.
"Habibie is Suharto's crony and Suharto's shadow," said Zulvan Lindan of the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, led by Habibie's main rival, Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Even Habibie's own party, Golkar, which nominated him for the presidency, questioned his handling of two key issues -- the dropping of a corruption investigation against Suharto and the East Timor crisis.
"How serious is the government about dealing with graft?" said Prio Budi Santos, the leader of Golkar's lawmakers, during the nationally televised proceedings in the parliament.
Hours earlier, as many as 5,000 protesters, a mixture of students, opposition supporters and the unemployed, blocked Jakarta's main boulevard near parliament.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS