TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Roy Suryo to return to House despite losing election
Despite failing to garner enough votes to get elected to the House of Representatives in the April 9 legislative election, Democratic Party executive, and former youth and sports minister, Roy Suryo has been inducted as a lawmaker by his party
Change Size
D
espite failing to garner enough votes to get elected to the House of Representatives in the April 9 legislative election, Democratic Party executive, and former youth and sports minister, Roy Suryo has been inducted as a lawmaker by his party.
In the April 9 election, Roy initially lost to fellow Democratic Party member Ambar Tjahyono from the Yogyakarta electoral district.
Instead of conceding defeat, Roy accused Ambar of vote rigging and filed a report to the party's ethics council, which decided last week to dismiss Ambar from the party.
The council ruled that Ambar had violated the party's ethics code and pact of integrity.
Council head Amir Syamsuddin, a former law and human rights minister, said the decision was legally binding.
'The decision was consistent with the law on political parties, where we have a council that can deliver a verdict,' he said on Saturday.
The dismissal of Ambar was made official in an official letter dated Oct. 17. In the letter, a copy of which has been made available to The Jakarta Post, the council also decided to appoint Roy as Ambar's replacement at the House.
Commenting on the verdict, Roy said that he still had to wait for a formal decision from the General Elections Commission (KPU) before he could return to the House.
Roy was first sworn in as a lawmaker in 2009. He decided to resign midway through his term in January 2013 after he was appointed to replace Andi Alfian Mallarangeng as the youth and sports minister by then president Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono.
Andi was sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the graft case surrounding the construction of a sports complex in Hambalang, West Java.
While his return was made at the expense of Ambar, Roy said that he did not see it as a conflict within
the party.
'This is not an internal conflict within the Democratic Party, but ridding the party of [corrupt party members] as was ordered by the Democratic Party chairman [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] recently,' he said.
Ambar, meanwhile, said that he had not been notified about the party's decision. 'Up to now, I am still a member of the Democratic Party and the House of Representatives,' he told the Post on Sunday.
Ambar also denied any wrongdoings. 'I've always stuck to that [the party's code of ethics],' he said.
Ambar also said he had won the seat fair and square.
'The process in the KPU has been completed and they found no electoral fraud [in Yogyakarta]. I won the seat with a margin of more than 10,000 votes,' he said.
Roy had earlier accused Ambar of tampering with the ballots, saying that there was a polling station where he was supposed to have received 71 votes, but later found that he got one vote according to the official tally.
'[Roy] did not want to concede defeat so he decided to take [me] down,' Ambar said.
Besides Ambar, the party's ethics council also decided to dismiss Rooslynda Marpaung, to allow for former lawmaker from the Democratic Party, Jhonny Allen Marbun, to return to the House.
Jhonny had accused Rooslynda of violating the party's ethics code.
Jhonny said that when she was running for the legislative seat on the Democratic Party's ticket, she was still registered as a member of the National People's Care Party.
Jhonny and Rooslynda contested a legislative seat in the North Sumatra II electoral district.
