Major demonstrations are planned in the Indonesian capital Jakarta today after lawmakers pushed through revisions to election rules, effectively reversing two Constitutional Court decisions that would have disadvantaged the ruling coalition.
In three meetings yesterday, the Jakarta Post reported, the House of Representatives’ Legislative Body (Baleg) rushed to revise the 2016 Regional Elections Law, a move that civil society watchdogs have condemned as an attempt to subvert the court’s efforts to ensure more competitive regional elections in November.
On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court issued two rulings in response to a petition by two new parties, with significant impacts for the regional elections that are scheduled to be held in late November. The three-day candidate registration period for the elections begins on August 27.
The first ruling, as the Jakarta Post explains, lowered the threshold necessary for political parties or alliance of parties who wish to nominate candidates for provincial and regional positions from 25 percent of the popular vote to between 6.5 and 10 percent, depending on the number of voters registered in the area in question.
Given the number of positions that are being contested by a single candidate, usually backed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and President-elect Prabowo Subianto’s powerful Onward Indonesia coalition, which includes all but one of the parties in parliament, this change had potentially far-reaching implications. As journalist Erin Cook noted in her newsletter Dari Mulut ke Mulut, “this would mean races across the archipelago that are currently only fielding one candidate – largely backed by the mammoth coalition behind Prabowo Subianto – could become competitive.”
In particular, the ruling opened the door for Anies Baswedan, who ran unsuccessfully against Prabowo in the presidential election in February, to stand for election again as governor of Jakarta. (He previously held the post in 2017-2022.) Prior to the ruling, the coalition of parties backing Prabowo and Jokowi chose to support a single candidate for the Jakarta governorship. This effectively ended Anies’ chances of running, given that no other party held enough seats to nominate the popular former education minister. The Constitutional Court, by lowering the nomination threshold, put Anies – a prominent rival of Jokowi and Prabowo – back in the frame.
The second ruling maintained the minimum age requirement of 30 for candidates contesting governor and deputy governor posts, affirming that this applies at the time a candidate is nominated rather than when they are sworn into office. This ruling reversed a Supreme Court ruling from May, which stated that the age requirement should apply when a candidate is inaugurated, opening the way for Jokowi’s 29-year-old son Kaesang Pangarep, who does not turn 30 until December, to take part in the election in November. Kaesang had been mooted as a possible candidate for a number of posts, most recently, the deputy governor of Central Java. The Constitutional Court ruling would have prevented him from running in November.
The two rulings were applauded by civil society watchdogs, which said that they would help prevent big parties, or broad coalitions like Onward Indonesia, from ganging up and dominating races. This perception was only enhanced by the Constitutional Court’s growing reputation as a tool of elite interests. In October, a court issued a ruling that lowered age thresholds for presidential and vice-presidential candidates, allowing Jokowi’s other son Gibran Rakabuming Raka to run as Prabowo’s vice-presidential running-mate. (The 36-year-old will take office alongside Prabowo in October.) The chief justice at the time was none other than Jokowi’s brother-in-law.
The fact that the Court was now ruling in support of a fair and democratic electoral process was widely welcomed. Dedi Kurnia Syah, the executive director of the group Indonesia Political Opinion, described it to BenarNews as “positive development for our democracy, as it prevents certain parties from eliminating competition in the regional elections.”
However, within hours of the ruling, lawmakers belonging to the Jokowi-Prabowo coalition began drafting reforms to the election laws that have effectively nullified the court’s decision.
According to the Jakarta Post, the changes made by Baleg yesterday made the lower candidate nomination threshold “applicable only to small political parties with no seats in the local legislature,” rendering their effective political impact void. It also inverted the second ruling so that the minimum age of candidacy once again applies at the time of inauguration rather than at the time of registration; in doing so, it argued that the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling took precedence over the Constitutional Court’s. Like the earlier ruling, this change has one real beneficiary: Kaesang, who turns 30 just before the inauguration date.
Home Minister Tito Karnavian and Law and Human Rights Minister Supratman Andi Agtas, a member of Prabowo’s Gerindra Party, both endorsed the revisions. Only the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle – ironically, the very party that nominated Jokowi as president at the 2014 and 2019 elections – opposed the revisions. The changes will go into effect once they are approved by the lower house of parliament and signed by the president.
This apparent subversion of an independent court ruling, just days ahead of the crucial nominating period, has prompted a surge of anger. Indonesian politicians have always adopted a flexible attitude toward democratic norms, but for many observers there is a sense that such a bald manipulation of election rules threatens to remove altogether the guardrails put in place after the fall of Suharto in 1998.
On social media, a range of prominent Indonesian figures began posting a grainy, blue “Peringatan Darurat” (Emergency Warning) image, taken from a popular “hacker broadcast,” to communicate their concern. This morning, the news magazine Tempo published an editorial that accused lawmakers of “openly flouting the law” in order to serve Jokowi’s dynastic ambitions and those of the country’s powerful oligarchs.
“Only with a massive movement like 1998 Reformasi can we possibly save Indonesia from the clutches of cartels and democracy hijackers,” it stated.
Titi Anggraini, a legal expert at the University of Indonesia, argued earlier that “there has been a defiance of the constitution and if it is allowed to continue, then the 2024 elections are unconstitutional and not legitimate to be held.”
Protests are now planned for today and tomorrow in front of the Indonesian parliament. Coming on top of similar rule-bending ahead of this year’s presidential election, there is a more than decent chance these could cascade into more widespread unrest.