Leading The International Debate Forum, Puan Maharani Talks About The Strategic Role Of Parliament In Accommodating People's Voices

JAKARTA - The Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Puan Maharani, led the debate session at the 143rd Inter Parliementary Union (IPU) General Assembly international forum in Madrid, Spain. Puan led the second session of the general debate, entitled 'Contemporary challenges to democracy: Overcoming division and building community'.

In the debate session, Puan spoke about the role of a country's parliamentary institutions in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on Saturday, November 27.

The role of the parliament as meant by Puan is to provide the best performance in accommodating the aspirations of the people and facilitating dialogue among people from different backgrounds despite the many challenges.

“Parliament must remain at the center of efforts to maintain a democratic, inclusive and prosperous society. Parliament must be able to sustain the shocks of our changing world," said Puan, quoted on Sunday, November 28.

In this time of crisis, PDI-P politicians think that parliament must continue to carry out its function of carrying out checks and balances in order to avoid abuse of power during an emergency.

"Parliament must be able to increase public trust in public institutions so that the decisions of public institutions can be accepted by the people," said Puan.

He said, all meetings or sessions in the DPR must be open and transparent, unless there are special considerations. He claimed that the DPR RI was committed to parliamentary openness and decided to have a national action plan (RAN) on Parliamentary Openness.

“There is no simple solution to every challenge to democracy. The path forward in a post-pandemic world will not be easy. Through shared responsibility and global solidarity, I believe we can recover better."

Furthermore, Puan emphasized that parliament must maintain the equality of the COVID-19 vaccine. Given, the number of malnourished people is predicted to skyrocket to more than 800 million people next year.

“Almost two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, we continue to face an unprecedented global health and socioeconomic crisis. Tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty," he said.