House Set to Pass Regional Head Elections Law Revision; Only PDIP Opposes
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22 August 2024 15:29 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Eight factions in the Legislative Body (Baleg) of the House of Representatives approved the results of today’s meeting on the fourth amendment to the Regional Head Election Law on Wednesday, August 21, 2024.
Only the Democratic Party of Struggle or PDIP opposed the decision to pass the revision discussion to the next stage. Meanwhile, the eight factions are the Gerindra Party, Golkar Party, National Mandate Party or PAN, Democratic Party, National Awakening Party or PKB, Prosperous Justice Party or PKS, and United Development Party or PPP.
“PDIP Faction disagrees with the motion to pass the Bill onto the next stage discussion,” PDIP legislator M. Nurdin, part of the Working Committee today said on Wednesday.
Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian, who was present at the meeting, said the government agrees to bring the regional head election law revision to DPR’s plenary meeting.
The discussion to revise the Regional Head Election Law came only a day after the Constitutional Court read its decision on the petitions regarding the regional election threshold. After being stalled several times over the past year, the DPR Legislative Body resumed the discussion to revise the law in a rushed move to circumvent the Top Court decision.
Constitutional Court's decision regarding the judicial review of Article 40 of the Regional Election Law which regulates the threshold for nominating regional heads and deputy regional heads, as well as Article 7 paragraph 2 letter e of the Regional Election Law concerning the minimum age limit for gubernatorial and deputy gubernatorial candidates.
In its decision, the Constitutional Court lowered the threshold for participating political parties or party coalitions to nominate a regional head candidate. MK’s decision allows parties to nominate a candidate based on valid votes adjusted to the population in the relevant region. Thus, political parties and party coalitions can nominate a candidate without having DPRD seats.
The Constitutional Court also decided that the requirement for governor candidates must be at least 30 years old as of the candidacy registration period.
The DPR Legislative Body, however, disregards MK’s decisions. The Working Committee was set to revise Article 7 Paragraph 2 Letter e of the Regional Head Election Law to enforce the 30-year-old age limit by the time of the elected candidate's inauguration instead.
Furthermore, the Legislative Body formulated a revision on Article 40 of the same law to only apply the 6.5 to 10 percent valid votes to non-DPRD seat holders while parties with seats in DPRD continue to apply the 20 percent threshold.
The Working Committee meeting today only lasted about seven hours. Almost all attendants, including working committee members, government representatives, and the Regional Representative Council (DPD) agreed to bring the Regional Head Election Bill to the next DPR plenary meeting.
SULTAN ABDURRAHMAN
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