Erwida Maulia & Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Jakarta – Election watchdogs and a lawyer association are among a string of different organizations planning to file a judicial review to the Constitutional Court against a recently passed controversial law that abolishes direct elections of regional leaders.
The Indonesian Voter Committee, or Tepi Indonesia, is among the organizations that have announced the review, said the regional election law, passed by the House of Representatives in the wee hours of Friday morning, to the anger of the Indonesian public, is against the Constitution.
Tepi coordinator Jerry Sumampouw said the law, which hands over the right to elect regional heads to regional legislative councils, is against Article 18 of the Constitution, which rules on regional administrations and regional autonomy.
"Article 18 treats regional heads and councils as equals," Jerry told the Jakarta Globe. "Regional heads should not answer to councils, but directly to the people."
Regional leaders will now be elected by, and report to regional councils, as specified in the new law, Jerry said.
Article 18 was included in the Constitution during its second amendment in 2000, in order to uphold the spirit of decentralization and regional autonomy brought about by the reforms era, following the fall of Suharto and his New Order regime in 1998.
Jerry said the 2004 Regional Governance Law, which ruled on direct elections of regional leaders before it was later scrapped with the passage of the new law on Friday, had been issued in order to carry the mandate of the article.
By scrapping direct votes, outcomes of regional elections in councils will be very much controlled by political party elites in Jakarta, as politicians at regional levels are only subordinates of the executives of the central party boards, Jerry said.
"That is against the spirit of regional autonomy as clearly stated in Article 18," Jerry said, adding that the third issue was people's sovereignty.
"Our Constitution, our democracy are clearly all about the sovereignty of the people. Handing over the elections of regional leaders to regional councils is a revocation of this sovereignty."
Jerry admitted there were many flaws in the organization of direct elections of regional leaders in Indonesia. But he said that rather than cancel the whole system, the new law should have improved it.
He added that Tepi was in the process of collecting as much supports as possible from the public before filing the judicial review to the court.
Jerry said he was optimistic that justices at the court would approve the lawsuit and annul the new law because of its inconsistency with the Constitution.
"The public's rejection of the law during the past two days is massive. I'm sure the justices will hear their voices," he added.
Joining in
The Association of Lawyers and Guards of the Constitution, or APPK, on Sunday also announced its plan to file an identical judicial review against the law to the Constitutional Court.
"The regional election law is unconstitutional. There is no clear clause in the Constitution instructing indirect regional elections through councils," APPK spokesman Ridwan Darmawan said in Jakarta.
He added the new law would also create a dilemma because another law regulating legislative bodies, known as the MD3 law, mentioned nothing about councils' right to elect regional leaders. The MD3 law, passed in July, has also spurred a controversy, although for different reasons, and is currently being reviewed at the Constitutional Court.
The People's Voter Education Network (JPPR), the Indonesian Civil Circle (Lima), the Association of Regional Administrations (Apeksi) and the Association of District Administrations (Apkasi) are among other organizations saying they are planning to file a judicial review against the regional election law.
JPPR deputy head Masykurudin Hafidz said his organization would form a coalition with as many as 24 other organizations from across the country to fight against the new law at the Indonesian Constitutional Court.
"We will ask the court to cancel the regional election law and to place a moratorium on regional elections throughout Indonesia until the Constitutional Court issues its verdict on this matter," said Ray Rangkuti, the director of Lima, also a member of the coalition.
"The law is clearly against the Constitution and Pancasila [Indonesia's five founding principles]," he added.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, after being widely condemned for letting his Democratic Party walk out of the House plenary session that ended with the passage of the controversial law, also has said he will file a judicial review against it. The party, which holds 148 out of 560 House seats, could have easily turned the legislative voting result on Friday and retained direct elections. Instead, it insisted that its so-called 10-point conditions for the elections must be met and walked out of the plenary session when those were not immediately met, allowing the controversial bill to be passed.
"In Jokowi's era I will fight for a system of direct regional elections, but with the improvements. That's my promise," Yudhoyono said from Washington DC on Saturday (Sunday in Jakarta).
"It's hard for me to sign the law on regional elections by regional councils when it fundamentally still conflicts with other laws, such as the law on regional administrations. Another law regulating the regional councils also doesn't authorize the councils to elect regional leaders."
Political analysts, including Ray, are highly skeptical of Yudhoyono's motive. "So [Yudhoyono] wants to file a judicial review? What is the drama he's playing this time?" Ray said. "If he wants to support [direct elections], he shouldn't have staged a political play with that walkout [in the House] by the Democrats."
Constitutional Court Chief Justice Hamdan Zoelva said the court would process reviews if filed. "We will treat [judicial reviews against the regional election] the same way we treat other judicial reviews," he said in a text message on Friday.
The Twitter drama
The hashtag #ShameOnYouSBY topped the global trending topic on Twitter for two days after the controversial passage of the law, and following the publication of the Jakarta Globe's editorial titled "Shame on SBY and His Non-Democrats" on its website shortly after the law's passage in the early hours of Friday morning.
By Saturday night, though, after the hashtag had been used in more than 250,000 tweets, Indonesian netizens questioned its sudden disappearance from the global trending topics list, when many of them were still using the hashtag in their tweets – related to the regional election law or otherwise – to criticize Yudhoyono and his Democratic Party.
The bill, after all, was submitted by Yudhoyono's administration to the House of Representatives in late 2011, before the start of deliberations the following year.
The hashtag has been replaced with #ShamedByYou, trending only locally.
"#ShameOnYouSBY disappeared, then: #ShameOnYouTwitter ???!!! Twitter is now anti-democracy???" Twitter used @karaniya wrote on Sunday night.
"We're only regular staff doing our duties. Let SBY himself selling his face at the international stages. #ShameByYou," tweeted @elvitria, who appears to be an Indonesian Foreign Ministry employee.
Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring denied the government has anything to do with the hashtag's disappearance from the trending topics list, but his "dubious" tweets raised suspicion.
"Some countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt once shut Twitter. Indonesia has never shut Twitter. Would anyone suggest that?" Tifatul tweeted on Sunday. In the evening he tweeted, "I reiterate once more, it's not true that Twitter will be shut in Indonesia."
Twitter's explanation on trending topics is that "[our] algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help you discover the hottest emerging topics of discussion."
Thousands of Indonesians, mainly activists and students, continued to stage protests against the regional election law in a number of regions on Sunday. Dozens of Indonesians also staged a protest outside Yudhoyono's hotel in Washington.
[Additional reporting by Novy Lumanauw & Nurjoni.]
Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/judicial-review-local-poll-elimination/