Next threat: Scrapping direct presidential polls

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Monday September 29 2014


Indonesia’s hard-won democracy, which emerged from the bloody reform movement of 1998 that ended Soeharto’s three decades of dictatorship, has never faced a critical challenge — until today.

After snatching the people’s right to elect their local leaders through a controversial Regional Elections Law passed on Friday, the coalition of losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto is suspected of planning an even more sinister plot.

This time around, the Red-and-White Coalition is seeking to scrap direct presidential elections and transfer the people’s political right to elect their national leader to the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR).

Presidential elections carried out by political and group representatives in the MPR will resemble those practiced during Soeharto’s New Order era.

The coalition, which will hold the majority of seats in the next composition of the House of Representatives, will do so by amending the 1945 Constitution.

The plan to strengthen the MPR as well as to amend the Constitution was officially announced during a House plenary meeting last week.

Puan Maharani, who leads the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) faction in the House, confirmed Prabowo’s supporters were ready to mobilize the plan.

“The demise of direct regional elections may lead to indirect presidential elections. But we don’t want that to happen, do we?” the daughter of PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri said.

Puan also said that she had heard rumors of a plan to revise the MPR’s internal regulation, to allow the assembly to impeach president-elect Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

A document, believed to be a draft amendment to the MPR regulation, was circulating over the weekend.

Several lawmakers who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue confirmed the validity of the document.

The draft contains revisions to articles 99, 105, 110 and 112, which detail the necessary procedures to impeach a president upon the recommendation of the House.

Article 99, for example, stipulates that the MPR can impeach a president based on a recommendation from the House, if the Constitutional Court rules that the president has committed a crime such as treason, corruption or other serious misconduct.

A president can also be impeached if he or she is deemed “unfit to carry out the duties of his/her office”.

Articles 105 to 112 elaborate upon the mechanism to appoint the vice president to assume the presidency following the president’s impeachment.

Lawmakers from the coalition that endorsed the Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla presidential ticket raised their concerns about such a possibility, as the MPR is currently revising its internal regulation as mandated by the newly passed Legislative Institutions Law (MD3).

Such a revision would restore the MPR to its historic position as the most-powerful state institution, invested with the authority to “review” the performance of leaders of inferior state institutions, including the office of the president.

Hayono Isman, a member of the patron council in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party, said the possibility of the next president being elected indirectly via the MPR was growing.

“If the Red-and-White Coalition controls the MPR, it will be easy for them to amend the 1945 Constitution. The public can be bullied by the MPR,” he said on Saturday.

Aburizal Bakrie, chairman of the Golkar Party, the biggest member of the Red-and-White Coalition, acknowledged the plan.

Aburizal even stated that the coalition planned to revise 122 laws.

“We must revise the laws to bring them in line with the plan to amend the Constitution,” he said.

Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, a political researcher at the National Science Institute, said reinstating indirect presidential elections was almost certainly Prabowo’s ultimate goal.

“Prabowo must have realized that it would be difficult for him to win via a direct election. So, he will forcibly destroy the system and return it to the New Order style,” he said.

Indonesia has enjoyed direct presidential elections since 2004, when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected president in a popular vote.



*