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No Polri decision by Jokowi for a month
Street theater: Supporters of President Joko âJokowiâ Widodo stage a theatrical demonstration at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta on Sunday
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span class="inline inline-center">Street theater: Supporters of President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo stage a theatrical demonstration at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta on Sunday. They made fun of the Jokowi camp, which has been divided between politicians wanting him to inaugurate graft suspect Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan as the National Police chief and ordinary voters who want him to seek another candidate. JP/P.J. Leo
President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo may have enough political backing to nominate a new National
Police (Polri) chief, but the nation is likely to wait at least one month for an end to the prolonged uncertainty.
The President told his Great Indonesian Coalition on Saturday that he would nominate a new police-chief candidate regardless of the result of Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan's pretrial motion at the South Jakarta District Court. The court is expected to issue its ruling on Monday.
The House of Representatives will enter a recess period and resume activities on March 18. After the President submits the name of the new candidate to House Commission III, a plenary session will formally decide whether to endorse the candidate.
'It's impossible to insert such an item in the agenda of the last plenary session on Wednesday [Feb. 18]. It's only possible to process it after March 18,' said Desmond Junaidi Mahesa, a legislator from the Gerindra Party faction on Sunday.
South Jakarta District Court judge Sarpin Rizaldi is scheduled to issue his verdict on Budi's pretrial petition on Monday. Budi has asked the court to void his status as a graft suspect by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
The President has breached his own promise to issue his final decision on the fate of Budi made last week. He later said he would postpone his decision until Monday.
Meanwhile, former Supreme Court chief justice Harifin Tumpa warned Judge Sarpin that approving Budi's request had no legal basis.
Harifin said the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP) limited the scope of a pretrial petition to only challenge improper arrests and the unilateral stoppage of an investigation by law enforcement institutions because any other acts carried out by investigators must be tried in court.
'The judge [Sarpin] must stick to his authority as allowed by the existing law. I don't think there is such a legal basis [to authorize a judge to approve a pretrial petition to challenge a suspect's legal status],' Harifin said.
Meanwhile, University of Indonesia (UI) legal expert Junaedi said the Supreme Court could impose sanctions on Sarpin if he insisted on declaring Budi's graft-suspect status as 'illegitimate'.
'He [Sarpin] could be demoted as happened to the judge who handled a pretrial hearing involving PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia,' Junaedi said.
Meanwhile, in a significant departure from its previous stance, senior Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggles (PDI-P) politician Hasto Kristyanto said that the party would support whatever decision Jokowi made with regard to Budi's candidacy.
'As Vice President Jusuf Kalla said earlier, any decision on the matter is up to President Joko Widodo. The PDI-P will always support the President as long as the decision is based on the Constitution. We don't want to make things worse,' Hasto said over the weekend as quoted by kompas.com.
Meanwhile, NasDem Party politician Patrice Rio Capella said party founder and leader Surya Paloh would respect Jokowi's decision on Budi's fate.
