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House recess suggests election inquiry plan dead on arrival
Plans to pursue a legislative inquiry into alleged irregularities in the February presidential election have failed to gain momentum as the House of Representatives went into recess on Thursday, without a single political party aligned with losing candidates bringing their proposal to the floor.
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House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani (center), with deputy speakers Sufmi Dasco Ahmad (second right), Lodewijk Freidrich Paulus (second left) and Rachmad Gobel (left), wraps up the current sitting session at the Senayan legislative complex in Jakarta on April 4, 2024. (Antara/Galih Pradipta)
Plans to pursue a legislative inquiry into alleged irregularities in the February presidential election appear to have failed as the House of Representatives went into recess on Thursday, without a single political party aligned with losing candidates bringing a proposal to the floor.
Aside from their ongoing challenges to president-elect Prabowo Subianto’s landslide victory at the Constitutional Court, the two unsuccessful candidates, Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan, had called for a House inquiry into the conduct of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration in the lead-up to voting day.
They claimed Jokowi’s administration abused state resources for the benefit of Prabowo, who ran with Gibran Rakabuming Raka, Jokowi’s son.
But none of the political parties aligned with Ganjar and Anies appeared to be willing to take the lead in the legislature on Thursday, when House Speaker Puan Maharani wrapped up the sitting and let lawmakers go into a month-long recess without presenting any formal proposal to launch an inquiry.
In a press conference after Thursday’s closing plenary, Puan, a prominent executive of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the largest party in the legislature and whose presidential candidate was Ganjar, declined to answer a barrage of questions about her party’s plans for a legislative inquiry.
Puan revealed last week that she had not given any instructions to the PDI-P faction at the House as a whole to roll out the inquiry, leaving it to individuals instead to decide whether to exercise their rights of inquiry.
When asked whether there was any initiative from party members to push forward the inquiry, Puan said there was no real progress made as of last week, suggesting that her party was still looking carefully at the support behind the proposal.
