LAST week, efforts to amend the 1945 Constitution began in earnest. The Regional Representatives Council (DPD) hopes its authority will be increased to make it as powerful as the House of Representatives (DPR), so that Indonesia will have a real bicameral legislature.

With this additional power, the DPD will resemble a senate, which will enact laws together with the DPR. Because its members are directly elected—four per province—it has suffi