Indonesia’s parliament has reportedly postponed planned changes to electoral laws after protests erupted in the capital Jakarta and other cities yesterday.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives’ Legislative Body (Baleg) rushed to draft revisions to regional election rules, effectively reversing two Constitutional Court decisions that would have disadvantaged their powerful coalition.
The parliament, dominated by supporters of outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and President-elect Prabowo Subianto, was scheduled to vote on these changes today, but seemingly had a change of heart in the face of a wave of public criticism.
One legislator told reporters outside the parliament building that yesterday’s session to pass the changes was delayed due to a lack of a quorum. However, Reuters quoted Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, the deputy speaker of parliament, as saying that the changes would be deliberated instead by the incoming parliament. As the news agency reported, this means that there will be “no change for this year’s regional elections,” which will take place across the country in November.
This means that the two Constitutional Court rulings handed down on Tuesday will stand. The first ruling lowered the threshold for any political party or alliance of parties to be able to nominate candidates for provincial and regional leadership positions. The ruling opened the door for Anies Baswedan, a key rival of the Jokowi-Prabowo coalition who ran unsuccessfully against President-elect Prabowo Subianto in the presidential election in February, to stand for election as governor of Jakarta. Under the previous higher threshold, no opposition party had a large enough share of the vote to nominate Anies. (The Nasdem party, which had previously announced its intention to nominate him, joined Prabowo’s coalition and withdrew its nomination last week.)
The second ruling tweaked the minimum age of 30 for candidates contesting governor and deputy governor posts, and blocked Jokowi’s 29-year-old son Kaesang Pangarep from taking part in the upcoming election. Kaesang, who will not turn 30 until after the election, had been mooted as a possible candidate for a number of positions, most recently, deputy governor of Central Java.
The Baleg revisions restored the higher candidate thresholds, effectively ruling Anies out of running, and reverted to an earlier Supreme Court ruling on the minimum age requirement, which stated that they applied on the date of inauguration rather than the date of nomination. This would have allowed Kaesang to run.
After the changes were rushed through by Baleg, just days before nominations for the regional elections open on August 27, outrage erupted. On social media, a range of prominent Indonesian figures posted a “Peringatan Darurat” (Emergency Warning) image. Many argue that this push has existential implications for Indonesian democracy that were more serious than at any time since the fall of Suharto in 1998. Legal expert Titi Anggraini characterized the Belag maneuver as “constitutional insubordination.”
More than 1,000 demonstrators then gathered outside the parliament building ahead of yesterday’s scheduled vote, set fires and tore down a section of its iron fence. According to Reuters, some demonstrators “carried a mock guillotine” bearing Jokowi’s face. Protests also took place in multiple cities in Java. In Semarang, authorities fired tear gas at demonstrators gathered outside the Governor’s Office and Central Java Legislative Council. Some held banners reading “A Total Political Dynasty” and “Impeach Jokowi.”
Afif Sidik, a 29-year-old teacher who joined the protest outside the Indonesian parliament, told the AFP news agency, “This is a republic. It’s a democracy, but if its leadership is decided by one person or an oligarch, we can’t accept that.”
Critics of the Belag maneuver claim that it is just one part of Jokowi’s attempt to consolidate power and establish a political dynasty by maneuvering his two sons into positions of influence. In October last year, the Constitutional Court issued a ruling that changed the minimum age requirements for presidential elections, allowing Jokowi’s eldest son, 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to successfully run for vice-president. At the time, the court was led by Jokowi’s brother-in-law. Gibran will be sworn into office along with Prabowo in October.
Then, on Wednesday, the head of the Golkar party, the second-largest party in parliament, resigned and was replaced by Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia, a known Jokowi loyalist. This has been characterized by Golkar insiders as an attempt to give Jokowi a political vehicle that can ensure a lasting influence once he steps down in October. During his speech to a Golkar party congress, Bahlil stressed the party must remain unified and warned its members to toe the party line. “If we play around with the king of Java, it will be dangerous for us,” he said, in an ominous apparent reference to Jokowi.
The attempt to circumvent the Constitutional Court is also part of a broader attempt by Jokowi and Prabowo to shut down opposition, in part by creating a coalition so broad that it is able to forestall meaningful competition. As Ian Wilson of Murdoch University described it in an article for Fulcrum back in January, “The logic of this approach… is to remove parliamentary opposition and curtail the emergence of rival power bases. This is done not by overt repression but co-optation into large ruling coalitions managed via negotiations and inter-elite deals.”