he House of Representatives finally agreed Monday to hold a series of confirmation hearings for 14 commissioner candidates for the General Elections Commission (KPU) and Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu).
"We'll proceed [with the hearings]. We've allocated three days, April 3-5, for the screenings, and we’ll bring the results to a plenary session on April 6," Commission II chairman Zainuddin Amali told a press conference after a closed-door meeting.
The decision was a response to public speculation that the House had been intentionally wasting time to enable it to complete the deliberation of the election bill first, in which they earlier planned to include a provision to allow political parties members to be KPU and Bawaslu commissioners. Election watchdogs and the KPU see the plan as a setback for the country's democracy, as both bodies are supposed to be independent of political interests.
At first, almost all House factions planned to ask the government to issue a regulation in lieu of law to extend the tenure period of current commissioners, who are supposed to end their term on April 12.
(Read also: Bawaslu to use IT-based monitoring system on voting day)
Then, ruling parties changed their decision, but the opposition, including the Gerindra Party, still insisted on postponing the confirmation hearings, claiming that it wanted to wait for the election bill to be finished.
"Now, no faction disagrees with the decision. This is the process we must undertake and we must prioritize togetherness among factions," Amali said. (dmr)
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