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SBY vows to challenge new threat to local democracy in Indonesia
Sydney Morning Herald - September 26, 2014
Speaking from the Willard Hotel in Washington, where he is attending international meetings, the Indonesian president said he rejected the law and would challenge it in the Constitutional Court or Supreme Court.
The law abolishes the direct election of local and regional leaders, and represents a pre-emptive blow at president-elect Joko Widodo by passing a law to end the direct election of local and regional leaders.
In the early hours of Friday, the outgoing Indonesian parliament voted to replace 2005 legislation which was part of the flowering of Indonesian democracy after the fall of dictator Suharto.
Instead of having the heads of the three lowest levels of government – local, regional and provincial – elected directly, they will be appointed by their respective parliaments.
The move by the "Red and White" parliamentary coalition – led by the Gerindra party of losing presidential candidate and former army strongman Prabowo Subianto – is considered by activists to be a step backwards for the country's democracy and an attempt by the country's oligarchs to reassert their power over ordinary people.
A scathing Jakarta Globe editorial, entitled "Shame on SBY and his non-democrats", said the law was a "betrayal of public trust" and rendered "all the progress and costs of the last 10 years futile".
Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, a former politician and senior adviser at local government consultancy Transformasi, said the only people who benefited would be oligarchs and elites, because parliaments and parties would simply appoint their mates.
"This scheme is being cooked up by the government and political parties in parliament because they're losing control of direct elections, so unexpectedly good people are being chosen," he said.
It's seen as a direct attack on Mr Joko, who first entered politics from outside the old elites as a directly elected local mayor in Central Java.
The vote came just six days before the old parliament is pushed out and the new parliament, chosen in April elections, is sworn in. Mr Joko will be inaugurated on October 20, replacing Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Dr Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, which controlled 148 votes out of 560 in the old parliament, split, with many MPs leaving the chamber. This enabled the bill to go through, even though the president had said last week that his party would reject it.
Online portal Detik.com reported that one of his MPs, Ruhut Sitompoel, contacted Dr Yudhoyono in the United States during the vote to ask his advice, and the president replied via SMS: "I'll call you later".
Activists believe the decision – opposed by about 80 per cent of the population – will leave an anti-democratic stain on the long-serving president's legacy.
At least one local government head – Mr Joko's popular deputy as Jakarta Governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama – quit his membership of Gerindra in protest in the lead-up to the vote.
The idea's proponents argued that having local mayors, regional leaders and provincial governors appointed would reduce cost, corruption and local conflict.
Gerindra party deputy chairman Fadli Zon said appointed leaders could be selected for "only the cost of tea and coffee" in the meeting room. There is minimal public funding of elections in Indonesia and much corruption is caused by political parties funding themselves.
The bill has been sitting before the parliament since 2012, and was rejected by most parties, including Gerindra, until after the presidential election, when they revived it.
Mr Fadli has admitted that the party of Mr Prabowo, which had previously opposed the legislation, had changed its mind since the election. But he insisted the move to appoint rather than elect mayors, "bupatis" (regional leaders) and provincial governors would restore an earlier form of Indonesian democracy, which was, according to the 1945 Constitution, "guided by the inner wisdom... arising out of deliberations among representatives".
He also likened the move to parliamentary democracies such as Australia, which do not directly elect the prime minister.
Mr Fadli said regional and local elections were hugely expensive, and appointing representatives over the past 10 years would have saved 60 trillion rupiah ($A5.6 billion). It would also reduce the corruption inherent in the widespread Indonesian practice of vote buying, he said.
It was good for democracy and political parties because, at the moment, "good people are not willing to join political parties because they are turned off by the bad image" of electoral politics. "After 10 years of exercising direct election at the regional level, we've found more disadvantages than advantages," he said.
They are all the arguments that were used by the bill's original proponents in 2012.
Mr Sarwono said corruption would not cease and nor would money be saved. "It will just shift the money politics to the oligarchs and the victims will be the Indonesian people, just when they were enjoying their constitutional rights." He said it would disadvantage small parties and independents in favour of large, established parties.
The passage of the bill is likely to prompt a Constitutional Court challenge. The country's constitution, amended in 2002, says sovereignty is "in the hands of the people". Street protests are also likely, though opposition to the bill was muted before it was passed. (With Karuni Rompies)
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