T

he Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) is not giving up its fight for leadership posts at the House of Representatives more than two years after it emerged victorious in the 2014 legislative election.

The party has again pushed for a revision to the Legislative Institutions (MD3) Law, which it said should be included in the priority list for next year’s national legislation program (Prolegnas).

The prevailing law does not include a proportional mechanism that would allow winners of legislative elections to secure House speakership posts.

The House deliberated on the MD3 Law when the pro-government Great Indonesian Coalition (KIH) and the opposition Red-and-White Coalition (KMP) clashed after the 2014 legislative election.

At the time, the Golkar Party, the second largest party in the House after the PDI-P, was aligned with the KMP.

Now that Golkar has become part of the ruling coalition, which is led by the PDI-P, the latter said it was hoping that its renewed call for a revision to the MD3 Law would gain support.

“Every elected president needs support from the majority of the legislative body. If it doesn’t secure support from the majority, the consequence will be transactional politics where the president will offer anything to the opposition camp just to get more support,” PDI-P legislator Arif Wibowo said.

“This is happening right now and it will result in ineffective governance. The President needs backing from most of the factions in the legislative body to ensure political stability,” he said.

Moreover, Arif said the country should once again adopt the “principle of proportionality” whereby the winner of a particular legislative election receives the highest degree of power in the House.

Currently, the post of House speaker is in the hands of the Golkar Party, with deputy speakers from the Gerindra Party, the Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

If the revision goes through, the House will revive the old system in which only the five biggest parties can get speakership posts. Under this mechanism, the posts would go to the PDI-P, Golkar, Gerindra, the Democratic Party and the National Awakening Party (PKB). The PDI-P, then, would have control of the House speakership.

PAN and PKS, an opposition party, may have to give up their slots under this system. “Yes, I could [be dismissed from the post of deputy speaker],” House Deputy Speaker Fahri Hamzah from the PKS said.

But Golkar does not seem eager to scratch the PDI-P’s back.

The House’s legislative deputy chairman Firman Soebagyo of Golkar said that the Baleg had dropped the bill from the Prolegnas list as it was now waiting for the Constitutional Court’s ruling on another judicial petition against the law.

The legislator, however, said the House could still deliberate on the MD3 bill anytime after the Constitutional Court handed down its ruling, even though it was not in the 2017 priority list.

Nonetheless, the party, which has nominated President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as a presidential candidate for the 2019 presidential election, sees no urgency to change the composition of the House leadership.

“We should not do [the revision] now, because we have to focus on fixing the House’s public image. Why don’t we leave the composition just as it is until the next legislative election?” Firman said.

Other parties are also ready to block any attempt by the PDI-P to get leadership posts at the House.

House Deputy Speaker Fadli Zon of Gerindra said there was no urgency to revise the law or change the composition of the House leadership.

“For now, we should focus on improving our legislative performance,” Fadli said.