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SBY weighs options to nix law
Strength in prayer: Protesters pray outside the State Palace on Monday as they demonstrate against a new law that gives regional legislative councils (DPRD) the power to elect governors, regents and mayors
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span class="inline inline-center">Strength in prayer: Protesters pray outside the State Palace on Monday as they demonstrate against a new law that gives regional legislative councils (DPRD) the power to elect governors, regents and mayors. The posters on the floor feature pictures of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his son, Democratic Party secretary-general Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono, and read 'Masterminds of indirect local elections'. JP/Wendra Ajistyatama
In what could be seen as a last ditch attempt to salvage what's left of his tattered credibility as a champion of democracy, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spoke late Sunday with Constitutional Court (MK) chief justice Hamdan Zoelva about how he might be able to revoke the newly passed law on the election of local leaders.
Hamdan said Monday that during the phone call Yudhoyono discussed his frustration over the passage of the new law and the process by which the new regulation had been deliberated.
'The President spoke to me about the decision-making dynamics in the plenary meeting at the House of Representatives. According to him, he was not well-informed about what was happening in the final minutes of the meeting [...] The President felt disappointed about the final decision made by the House,' said Hamdan, who is also a former lawmaker from the Crescent Star Party (PBB).
Hamdan, however, rebuffed the suggestion that Yudhoyono had asked him to annul the law.
Hamdan added that he confirmed for Yudhoyono that the law would take effect even if he refused to sign it into law, as stipulated by Article 20 (5) of the Constitution.
'The origin of the article dates back to the Soeharto era, when the president refused to sign a law that had been endorsed at a House plenary meeting, preventing the law from taking effect,' he said, adding that the mechanism had been designed and adopted to prevent such an occurrence.
The House submitted the article in the second amendment to the Constitution in 2000, when Hamdan was serving as lawmaker.
'I took part in the deliberation of the amendment. ['¦] If a law is not signed by the president, the law will take effect in 30 days after being passed by the House,' said Hamdan.
The decision to scrap the direct election of local heads was made by the House while Yudhoyono was on a visit to the United Nations in New York.
Yudhoyono is slated to hold a Cabinet meeting to discuss the public backlash over the passage of the law.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party leadership put the blame for the party's walkout before the bill's vote squarely upon the shoulders of House party faction head Nurhayati Ali Assegaf, a former aide to First Lady Ani Yudhoyono.
'There is no such thing as a misinterpretation of instructions. Our chairman [Yudhoyono] clearly instructed us to fight for direct elections with a 10-point list of improvements,' the party's executive chairman, Syariefuddin 'Syarief' Hasan, announced on Monday.
Syarief said that there would be an inquiry into what really transpired during the crucial vote.
'There will be an internal evaluation, but we don't want to [publicly] blame anyone,' Syarief said.
Nurhayati herself has taken the blame for the walkout, acknowledging that she ordered all Democratic Party lawmakers attending the plenary session at the House to leave the chamber.
'There is no need to investigate who was the mastermind, because I am the one who was responsible for the decision [to order a walkout]. I have apologized to our chairman [Yudhoyono] as well,' she said.
Meanwhile, earlier on Monday, six individuals and four civil society groups officially filed a judicial review of Article 3 of the law, which regulates the election of governors, mayors and regents by the regional legislative councils (DPRDs).
'[The] DPRDs are not the repository of the people's sovereignty in this country, so regional elections through the DPRDs goes against the principle of people's sovereignty,' said Erasmus Napitupulu from the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, one of the complainants.
Also on Monday, Bara JP, a volunteer group supporting president-elect Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo, planned to hold a demonstration at Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base to greet Yudhoyono upon his return to Indonesia.
The group is expected to stage a protest that will start at the State Palace, move to the United Nations representative office on Jl. MH Thamrin, Central Jakarta, and finish at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) headquarters in Kuningan, South Jakarta.
'We call on the UN to shut the door on Yudhoyono's aspiration to become UN secretary-general and the KPK to look into his alleged involvement in several corruption cases implicating his party executives,' Syafti Hidayat from Bara JP told The Jakarta Post.
