Jaya Suprana – In the midst of the euphoria and optimism thanks to Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs Mahfud MD guarantee that the presidential and legislative elections would go ahead on 2024, Paramadina Pubic Policy Institute Managing Director Dr Ahmad Khoirul Umam politely raised concerns about a new strategy being used to legitimise any and all means to postpone the elections.

Umam pointed out that following the political operation to postpone the elections, which involved elements within the inner circles of power at the Presidential Palace, that was incapable of consolidating the forces need to support in the House of Representatives (DPR), the political operation still appears to be running.

The alternate strategy which will be pursued by these actors is by forcing the General Elections Commission (KPU) to declare that it is "incapable" of organising the elections on February 14, 2024.

One of the basic indicators of this operation is the lack of aggression on the part of the political parties in Senayan (the parliament) to decide on the allocation of funds for the 2024 elections. The crucial point for this is in the next few months.

If the KPU's hands and feet are tied by a lack of clarity over the allocation of funds for the elections, then technical and operational problems in the preparations for the elections will emerge.

It will be at this point that the elements of the predatory forces around the Presidential Palace and the political parties which support the election postponement will "wash their hands" of the matter and dump the organisational errors and problems in the KPU's lap.

If they are successful in forcing the KPK to declare that it isn't ready, then the predatory political operation will have succeeded.

It is because of this that the KPK and all the elements of civil society forces must be truly ready to anticipate this.

The KPU must not be allowed to become an integral part of the predatory forces pushing to postpone the elections and mess up the democratic rules of the game through constitutional amendments which are in line with the tastes of a narrow group of economic and political interests.

Interestingly, the sharp focus of these observations on this political stage play and at the same time the skills of the lecturer of political science and international studies at the Paramadina University which explicitly and frankly expresses concerns over these greedy predatory forces to mess up the democratic rules of the game in such a greedy and egotistical way, are still within constitutional corridors.

Obviously, the concerns of the political science doctor and alumni of the Queensland University in Australia should not be taken lightly, particularly by the DPR and the government.

God willing the legislative and executive will carefully and thoroughly scrutinise the concerns of this Indonesian intellectual.

Because only the government and the DPR have the authority and power to prevent these concerns from becoming a reality.

If the legitimisation of any and all means to postpone the elections actually happens, then the reality will be truly appalling, like a horror scene from a political game which will be recorded as black page in history of civilised democracy on this planet.

[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Menghalalkan Segala Cara demi Tunda Pemilu". Jaya Suprana is the founder of the Humanitarian Studies Studio.]

Source: https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2022/03/10/09391941/menghalalkan-segala-cara-demi-tunda-pemil