Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Pressure for president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's Gotong Royong coalition to exert influence on rival camps has been mounting, as the House of Representatives has agreed on a mechanism that would allow five leadership posts to be voted on in a single round.
The House's special committee on internal regulations sealed a regulation on Wednesday that stipulated that the nominations for House speaker and four deputy speakers would be presented in one package and all of them should come from different political party factions.
The rule, written in Article 28 of the draft House regulations on internal regulations, would implement the newly-enacted Legislative Institution Law (MD3), which set the new mechanism for voting for the speaker and deputy speakers, as well as for the leaders of the House's 11 commissions and other bodies.
The mechanism was a departure from the procedure of the previous 10 years in which the five posts were filled through consensus. The five political parties that get the most votes in a legislative election have the option to offer representatives, with the winning party automatically securing the House speaker's seat.
Under the new regulation Jokowi's coalition cannot propose a nominee without a lending hand from at least one political party from the rival camp, the Red-and-White Coalition that supported the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa presidential ticket in the July election.
Led by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the winner of the 2014 legislative election, Gotong Royong currently additionally consists only of the National Democratic Party (NasDem), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and Hanura.
Saleh Husein, a special committee member from Hanura, said there was still a hope for the coalition because the draft of the internal regulation still had to be discussed in a working committee.
"I think it shows there is a strong desire [from the Red-and-White Coalition] to rule the house. We hope that the rule could be reviewed again in the working committee," he said.
He also said that Gotong Royong was currently seeking other parties to join the coalition, so that if the draft was passed Gotong Royong would still be able to nominate a House leadership package.
"In politics, anything can happen. There could be one or two parties who will join the Gotong Royong coalition before Oct. 1," he said.
Another special committee member from the PDI-P, Abidin Fikri, added that he did not worry about the situation because there remained a lot of time to conduct political maneuvers. "The political situation is still very dynamic," he said.
PDI-P is currently challenging seven other provisions in the controversial revision of the MD3 at the Constitutional Court. Having been enacted one day before the presidential election, it was viewed as a preemptive strike against the PDI-P-led coalition and candidate Jokowi should he win the election.
During the first hearing last week, representatives of the PDI-P asked the court to order a delay in the imposition of the law. Such an order, they argued, could eliminate the potential constitutional loses of the petitioners.
Another controversial revision in the law is Article 245, which gives a form of legal immunity to lawmakers facing criminal charges. The article stipulated that law enforcement agencies needed to get a permit from the House Honor Tribunal before they could summon lawmakers for alleged criminal activities.
Any requests for summons would be considered invalid if the Honor Tribunal, which would consist of 17 lawmakers from each political faction in the House, does not give its approval. (ask)
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/04/house-agrees-voting-leaders-table-d-hote-fashion.html