Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – Bowing to public pressure, the House of Representatives finally halted the deliberation of the controversial mass organizations bill on Thursday.

Political factions in the House openly suggested they had to stop deliberating the bill as they could not risk losing the support of voters ahead of the 2014 legislative election.

"We're now approaching the election so it's better to listen to the public," said Deputy House Speaker Pramono Anung Wibowo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said that it was too risky to endorse the bill today. "We see that this bill will bring more harm if we continue pushing for its adoption," PKS faction leader at the House, Hidayat Nur Wahid, said.

Civil organizations have rejected the bill, saying that it would bring back repressive government control on mass organizations as experienced in the New Order era.

The bill has been met with scorn by both rights groups and Muslim groups, which in a rare show of solidarity, rallied against the draft. Rights groups stood against the bill, saying that it would have restricted freedom of association.

Meanwhile, Muslim groups were concerned that the bill, if endorsed, would have been used by the government to crack down on them based on the stipulation that Pancasila (the country's five founding principles) must be the only ideology adopted by all mass organizations in the country.

Muslim organizations also rejected the bill because they said it had the potential to be used by the government to spy on their activities.

Muhammadiyah, the country's second-largest Muslim organization, warned lawmakers against endorsing the bill and urged its members not to vote for politicians who supported it.

Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin warned that the organization would keep records of its members who served as lawmakers and supported the bill. Din said the lawmakers would be the subject of a campaign by Muhammadiyah to promote them as "anti-people" lawmakers.

The House had planned to vote on the bill at a plenary session scheduled for April 12 after several weeks of deliberation that was punctuated by criticism from mass organizations, specifically Muslim groups, NGOs, students and workers, that the bill might infringe on people's rights to association.

Human rights activists have also criticized the bill, calling it draconian and a threat to democracy. The bill would have given the government the power to freeze or disband organizations.

Activists said the bill could have been used by officials to silence critics by accusing them of behaving in ways that ran against Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution.

Articles 2 and 3 of the bill stipulate that all mass organizations, including foreign organizations operating in the nation, must conform to the 1945 Constitution and Pancasila.

Chairman of a special committee tasked to deliberate the bill, Abdul Malik Haramain of the National Awakening Party (PKB), said that the House would continue to discuss the bill in the next sitting session.

"We have decided to extend the deliberation until the next House session in order to allow for the public to air their aspirations," he said.

However, Abdul Malik denied that the House had bowed to mounting public pressure and attributed the decision to a technical problem.

"Only yesterday did we manage to finish the draft after we included suggestions from several groups including Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama [NU]. We obviously need more time to discuss the draft with the government before officially endorsing it," he said.

The special committee has also received suggestions from other Muslim groups.

To give the impression that the bill would not pose a threat to Islam, as was suggested by Muslim groups, including the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), the committee recently added new details in the draft that the only ideologies banned in the country were atheism, communism, Marxism and Leninism.

However, such provisions failed to change the stance of Muhammadiyah. "We reject the bill, whatever changes the lawmakers make, especially if those changes favor only a small number of groups. A law should treat all of us equally," Din told the The Jakarta Post.