Parliament ready to process reinstatement of Novanto as house speaker

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR) Fadli Zon said the DPR leaders are ready to process reinstatement of Setya Novanto to his former position as House Speaker. 

Novanto, a cadre of the Golkar party, gave up the position when he was facing charge of violation of ethical code in front of the House Honorary Tribunal (MKD) for alleged misusing of the name of the president in asking for a share in a project of Freeport Indonesia last year.

He was replaced by Ade Komarudin, another Golkar leader.

Later he was elected general chairman of the Golkar party and call for his reinstatement began.

"We will see. We will process in line with the mechanism effective in the DPR," Fadli said after a meeting with Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengku Buwono X here on Tuesday.

Fadli said Novanto has no problem with ethical code as he quit as House speaker before the ethic court made a decision on the charge against him.

"There is no problem hampering Novanto retaking the position of House speaker as the MKD had never slapped any sanction on him," he said.

He said the DPR leaders would meet if the DPR has received an official letter from Golkar to study any proposal for the reinstatement of Novanto.

The DPR leaders would study the reasons for the proposed reinstatement in line with the law on the legislative bodies, the chairman of the Gerindra party said.

He refused to express his personal opinion about the possible reinstatement of Novanto. 

"I would not say anything about that as I have not even seen the letter," he said.

The Golkar party, at a plenary meeting on Monday, decided to return the position of the House speaker to Novanto.
Source: ANTARA