After more than a month of intense deliberation, the House of Representatives finally passed on Thursday the regional elections bill into law, despite objections from certain factions to several points in the law.

One such point is Article 7, which stipulates that legislators from the House, Regional Legislative Councils (DPRD) and Regional Representative Councils (DPD) have to submit a written resignation if they are nominated as candidates to run in regional elections.

During his speech at the plenary session, the House working committee chairman, Rambe Kamarulzaman, said all 10 House factions disagreed with the idea that legislators should resign from their posts when competing in elections.

“All factions objected to the resignation requirement, until two days before the final meeting with the government. It was then that we finally agreed to accept it,” said the Golkar Party legislator.

The government said the resignation stipulation followed a Constitutional Court ruling in September 2015, which stipulates that civil servants and legislators have to leave their positions to run in elections.

Rambe said the implementation of the article might open the door to another judicial review in the future. “The potential for a judicial review [against the article] is high, as long as the individuals or parties have a legal standing,” he said.

However, working committee deputy chairman Lukman Edy of the National Awakening Party (PKB) was pessimistic that political parties would file a judicial review given that public trust in legislators was weakening.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) legislator Rahmat Nasution Hamka from House Commission II overseeing home affairs, criticized the Constitutional Court’s ruling, arguing that the court sometimes used erroneous logic in issuing its decisions.

The passing of the regional elections bill into law was greeted with applause by the General Elections Commission (KPU). “It’s the right decision because it’s in line with the Constitutional Court decision, which is mandatory,” KPU commissioner Hadar Nafis Gumay said.

The KPU is concerned about Article 9, which stipulates that the election commission must set regulations (PKPU) after first consulting with the House and the government in a hearing.

“Such a regulation could reduce our independence. We were surprised by this point because the House never told us or invited us to talk about it,” Hadar said.

He added that the point might disturb local elections because it was possible that the KPU and legislators with political interests might conflict in setting regulations.

The House claims they are following the Legislative Institution Law that stipulates that their recommendations are binding to all parties.

Also under the new law, Article 135 stipulates that the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) has the authority to accept reports, investigate and issue verdicts on administrative violations and transactional politics.

Previously, to take action against transactional politics, Bawaslu could only recommend the reports to courts.
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