HOUSE LEADERS ARE STATESMEN, NOT POLITICIANS : EXPERTS

Jakarta, March 5 (ANTARA) - Leaders of the House of Representatives (DPR) are actually statesmen, no longer politicians, so that they are expected to be neutral and not to give priority to their political parties, experts said.

"DPR leaders are statesmen. They should take a neutral stance," constitutional expert Refly Harun said here on Friday.

The same view was voiced by professor of political and social sciences of the University of Indonesia (UI) Mawadi Rauf who said that DPR leaders should position themselves as statesmen who served the people's interest, thus enabling them to maintain the DPR sessions' rhythm.

"DPR leaders should not bring with them their parties' interest to the session. After all, they have been represented by the chairmen of their parties' factions," Mawadi Rauf said.

He said at the recent DPR plenary session on Bank Century, House Speaker Marzuki Alie had not positioned himself as a statesman.

In the session, Alie defended the interest of the Democrat Party (PD) by commenting that members of the Democrat Party were united because they had all agreed to one option.

Refly Harun said that Alie's step to abruptly close a plenary session without the approval of other House deputy chairmen gave a higher score in the public eyes to the other DPR leaders.

After Alie left the session room, the other three DPR deputies complained to the media about the House Speaker's attitude, while in fact they have to follow Alie and discussed the next steps, not adversely spoke to the press.

"When one leader got a lower score, the other leaders would gain higher scores," he said.