Jakarta. People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Ahmad Muzani on Tuesday defended his decision to attend the funeral of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying he would travel as a special envoy of President Prabowo Subianto rather than in his capacity as head of the legislature.

The appointment has drawn criticism from several politicians, who argued that Indonesia's constitutional framework places the president and the MPR on an equal institutional footing, meaning one cannot formally instruct or represent the other.

“I will attend as the President's special envoy,” Muzani told reporters in Jakarta.

Muzani, who is also an executive at Prabowo's Gerindra Party, is scheduled to travel to Iran alongside Foreign Minister Sugiono for the funeral on July 9.

He said his assignment was based on the president's authority to appoint representatives for official overseas engagements and therefore did not conflict with Indonesia's constitutional order.

According to Muzani, the trip was not proposed by the MPR and should not be viewed as an institutional mission undertaken by the legislature.

Criticism came from Bambang Wuryanto, a senior politician from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and one of the MPR's deputy speakers.

Bambang argued that the president and the MPR are separate constitutional institutions of equal standing and therefore cannot formally dispatch one another on official assignments.

He said Muzani should first have consulted the MPR leadership before accepting the appointment, or alternatively, the president should have consulted the assembly's leaders before naming the speaker as part of Indonesia's delegation.

Bambang also argued that Muzani could not attend the funeral either as MPR speaker or in his capacity as a senior official of the Gerindra Party.

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