AHY Suspects Moeldoko Wants to Impede Anies' Presidential Candidacy

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Democratic Party chairman Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono or AHY is fighting back against the President's Chief of Staff Moeldoko's judicial review filed to the Supreme Court over the appellate decision in the Democratic Extraordinary Congress case. AHY said that Moeldoko appealed for review on March 3, one day after the Democrats decided to support former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan as a potential presidential candidate.

AHY met all of the party's cadres during a morning assembly on Monday, April 3, 2023 —with 38 DPD chairmen, 514 DPC, and 1,800 DPRD members attending. The forum, AHY said, is of the opinion that the judicial appeal could possibly be intended to thwart Anies' candidacy as a presidential candidate.

"The forum also believes that there is a serious effort to dissolve the coalition for change, by taking over the Democrats," AHY said in a press conference after the leadership meeting at the Democratic DPP Office in Jakarta, Monday, April 3, 2023.

Moreover, AHY said, legal practitioners have also said that review can become a "dark room in court" because it will create a gap for political intervention. If that happens, he said, justice and democracy in the country will be in "a red light situation, aka emergency".

AHY said he realized there were risks in supporting presidential candidates who were not wanted by the ruling regime. Since last year, he said, the "small team representative" that helped Anies had warned about these risks, including Moeldoko's efforts to file a review to slow down the coalition's pace of change.

Even since last year, AHY claimed that his party has predicted that the judicial review will become very "political" and has the potential to dissolve the coalition for change. "Now the allegations are proven," he said.

AHY explained today that the appellate has rejected Moeldoko's claim through decision number 487/K/TUN 2022 on September 29, 2022. Now, he said, Moeldoko claimed that he had found four pieces of new evidence.

AHY denied that the novum submitted by Moeldoko was new evidence, as all four had been used as evidence in the Jakarta Administrative Court trial with case number 150/G/2021 on November 23, 2021.

Reacting to Moeldoko's actions, AHY has officially sent a legal team to submit a counter memorandum of answers to PK Moeldoko to the Jakarta Administrative Court. "We believe the Democrats are in the right position," said AHY.

The Democrats also asked for help from former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Hamdan Zoelva to lead the legal team against Moeldoko. Like AHY, Hamdan agrees that the four novums proposed are not new evidence.

Moeldoko was met at the Presidential Palace court today and asked to comment on AHY's accusations. "I cannot answer that now," he said, April 3.

ANTARA | PELNI

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