Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – Only three months before the legislative election, a coalition of NGOs called on the Constitutional Court (MK) to issue a ruling on a judicial review it filed on the Presidential Election Law.
The group, the Coalition of Civil Society for Simultaneous Elections, accused the court of being involved in politics and dishonest in its tardy deliberation of the judicial review, filed over one year ago.
The coalition filed the judicial review on Jan. 10, 2013, to challenge Law No. 42/2008, demanding the legislative and presidential elections be conducted simultaneously.
The coalition argued that by holding the elections simultaneously, the General Elections Commission (KPU) could prevent possible horse trading and transactional politics. A simultaneous election could also help improve voter turnout, the group argued.
The court has yet to announce its ruling, although it had completed its hearings on the petition back in April last year.
The coalition demanded the court announce its verdict before Jan. 21, when it is scheduled to deliver a ruling on a judicial review request on the same law filed by Yusril Ihza Mahendra, a presidential hopeful from the Crescent Star Party (PBB).
"We are confused why the court hasn't announced its verdict until now while Mahfud MD [former court chief justice] had said that court had made the decision since April last year," Effendi Ghazali, a member of the coalition, told a discussion on Sunday.
Effendi, a political analyst from the University of Indonesia, added that the coalition had written to court three times asking when it would issue a verdict.
Coalition member Ray Rangkuti suspected politics to be behind the delay. "We don't want politics involved in the decision because it would be very dangerous," Ray said.
In late December, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono suggested that the court has used the amendment of the Presidential Election Law as a bargaining chip in the debate over reform at the court.
"I heard – I hope this is not true – that the Perppu [the regulation in lieu of law] is being linked to a petition currently being handled by the court; the [judicial review] of the Presidential Election Law regarding the current [electoral system] and the presidential threshold," Yudhoyono said, referring to the Perppu to reform the court following the arrest of former chief justice Akil Mochtar for graft.
The coalition said it would not revoke its judicial review request, unless the MK delivered its verdict immediately.
On Dec. 13 last year, Yusril also submitted a request to challenge the Presidential Election Law, demanding the court scrap several articles in the law, including the stipulation that a party must gain 20 percent of the seats at the House of Representatives or 25 percent of the national legislative votes in order to nominate a presidential candidate.
The former Law and Human Rights minister deemed the legislative threshold to nominate a president unnecessary as the legislative and presidential elections should be held simultaneously as mandated by Article 22e of the Constitution.