JAKARTA. In spite of a truce offered earlier on Thursday, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)-led coalition insisted on inaugurating its own version of House of Representatives leadership, plunging the House further into uncertainty more than one month after being inducted.
The move has been met with disapproval from many, including President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who called on the PDI-P-led coalition and the Red-and-White Coalition to bury the hatchet.
“It is better for us to unite [...] people could follow the [bad] example,” Jokowi said at the Presidential Palace on Friday.
Jokowi, however, was confident that the two camps could soon resolve their differences.
Kalla, meanwhile, called on lawmakers to peacefully settle their disputes. “I believe musyawarah [consensus-building deliberation] can solve the deadlock. It is important to maintain good relations [among lawmakers],” Kalla told reporters at his office in Central Jakarta on Friday.
Despite the absence of any legal basis, the PDI-P-led coalition officiated on Friday National Awakening Party (PKB) lawmaker Ida Fauziah as its version of House speaker during its own plenary meeting on Friday, along with the PDI-P’s Effendi Simbolon, United Development Party’s (PPP) Syaifullah Tamliha, NasDem Party’s Maj. Gen. (ret) Supiadin Aries Saputra and Hanura Party’s Dossy Iskandar Prasetyo as deputy speakers.
The camp initially tagged PDI-P senior politician Pramono Anung Wibowo as speaker and PKB’s Abdul Kadir Karding and NasDem’s Patrice Rio Cappella as deputies but later dropped them from the list.
Pramono and Patrice were not present during the camp’s plenary session.
Although leaders of political parties in the coalition were aware that the move was illegal, they however insisted that the action was needed to challenge the “authoritarian” leadership by current House leaders, who all come from factions within the rival Red-and-White Coalition.
“It is the only way to fight back. The Red-and-White Coalition refused to sit down for a consensus. And by abusing the House internal regulation, it has swept up all leadership posts in the House by imposing the controversial package system in the selection process,” said the secretary of the PDI-P faction, Bambang Wuryanto.
“Should we just be quiet and submit ourselves to this injustice? I don’t think so,” Bambang added.
The plenary meeting held to inaugurate the new speakers took place in the Steering Committee (Bamus) meeting room, which is also a meeting room for the PDI-P faction, as politicians from the PDI-P-led coalition were not allowed to use the plenary room.
Given the illegal status of the meeting, the House secretariat general office decided to shut down all facilities in the complex, including air conditioners and escalators in the building, prompting the defiant lawmakers to wait for hours before finally being able to convene the session.
The PDI-P-led coalition, which nominated President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in the July election, had been calling for the majority Red-and-White Coalition, which nominated Jokowi’s former rival Prabowo Subianto, to adopt a musyawarah mechanism in the selection of the House’s internal bodies, including its 11 commissions, after losing all speakership positions due to the implementation of a package system.
The package mechanism requires each of the ten political factions to propose candidates from different factions touted for all chairmanship posts within the legislative institution. A voting mechanism was prepared if the first option failed to reach a decision.
As a minority, with 247 seats of a total 560, the PDI-P-led coalition would lose all voting sessions.
The current House leadership has strongly repudiated the establishment of a “shadow” House leadership and blamed the tense situation in the House on the latter’s intransigence.
House Speaker Setya Novanto on Friday called on leaders of the PDI-P, PKB, PPP, NasDem and Hanura factions to join a meeting aimed at breaking the deadlock.
“We have scheduled meetings for next week, including a plenary session. As a start, they can come. We are committed to immediately beginning all legislative programs in order to support Jokowi,” Setya said. (Margareth S. Aritonang and Ina Parlina)
