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Council appoints new speakers, with some old faces
The Jakarta City Council has named the councillors who will lead the legislative body for the new period with the priority of completing the deliberation of stalled bylaws and policies aimed at easing the persistent woes that blight the city
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span>The Jakarta City Council has named the councillors who will lead the legislative body for the new period with the priority of completing the deliberation of stalled bylaws and policies aimed at easing the persistent woes that blight the city.
Five councillors were selected to lead the city council for the 2019-2024 period on Thursday, with some familiar faces. Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician Prasetyo Edi Marsudi remains at the speaker post while the Gerindra Party’s Muhammad Taufik also stays on as deputy speaker. Three new faces joining the speakership are Abdurrahman Suhaimi from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Zita Anjani from the National Mandate Party (PAN) and Misan Samsuri from the Democratic Party.
The selection of the speakers came following the inauguration of the new councillors in late August.
Of the five, four previously served as councillors in the last term, while Zita, the daughter of PAN chairman Zulkifli Hasan, is a newcomer having been elected on April 17.
The speakership posts were allocated to the parties on the basis of the respective number of seats they won on the council in the legislative election.
The PDI-P came in first, securing 1.3 million votes, 22.65 percent of the total vote, during the election and thus was entitled to 25 seats in the legislative body.
Longtime allies Gerindra and the PKS — political parties that backed Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan in the 2017 gubernatorial election — got 19 and 16 seats, respectively.
The Democratic Party and PAN, meanwhile, secured 10 and 9 seats respectively.
The names were announced by the City Council interim head Pantas Nainggolan from the PDI-P during a plenary meeting at the council building in Central Jakarta on Thursday.
The City Council for the 2019-2024 term consists of 106 members from 10 political parties, comprising PDI-P, Gerindra, the PKS, the Democrats, PAN, the Nasdem Party, Golkar, the National Awakening Party (PKB), the United Development Party (PPP), and the newcomer Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI).
During the plenary meeting, Pantas also read out the names of each faction head, namely Gembong Warsono of the PDI-P, Gerindra’s Rany Mauliani, Muhammad Arifin (PKS), Desie Christhyana Sari (Dems), Lukmanul Hakim (PAN) and the PSI’s Idris Ahmad. Wibi Adriano will lead Nasdem’s faction while the other faction heads are Golkar’s Basri Baco and Hasbiallah Ilyas representing the joint faction of the PKB and PPP.
Activists have lambasted the previous councillors for leaving office with a substandard track record for producing a minimum of bylaws and having failed to select a new deputy governor, despite the governor having submitted to the council on March 4 the names of two candidates for the position left vacant by Sandiaga Uno a year ago when he ran for vice president.
The councillors elected for the 2014-2019 period passed 36 bylaws in the city legislative program (Prolegda) during their tenure, less than half of the number of bylaws passed in the previous 2009-2014 council at 77.
Jakarta Governor Anies who attended the plenary session expressed the hope that the newly appointed councillors would speed up the deliberation of some pressing draft bylaws.
“There are up to four draft bylaws categorized as urgent. These include the detailed spatial plan [RDTR] draft bylaw and also the selection of deputy governor,” Anies said on Thursday.
Speaking after the plenary meeting, Prasetyo said the council’s priorities would include resolving the city’s severe traffic congestion and flooding.
He added that the council would set up an app called Join Go to accommodate public complaints regarding the executive’s performance.
“If the city budget has been allocated [for certain tasks] but the city administration does not carry them out, I will summon the relevant working units,” he told reporters.
He declined to make a further comment when asked about the council’s need to select a deputy governor, saying he would follow it up after the speakers were officially inaugurated.
Meanwhile, Zita said the leadership board should pay more attention during deliberation to improve the quality of bylaws.
“City bylaws need to be gender-responsive to women, as well as children,” she told The Jakarta Post.
She expressed her willingness to encourage the council to issue regulations that are pro-women and children, given her position as the only female in the leadership board.
After the announcement on Thursday, the council secretary will submit the names of the speaker and deputy speakers to the Home Ministry for inauguration, which must take place 15 days at the latest after the names are submitted.
Lucius Karus, a researcher at legislative watchdog Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi), said there was no optimism regarding the composition of council speakers, which are predominantly incumbents.
He pointed out M. Taufik who should not have been reelected because of his status as a former graft convict.
“Every time the leadership board of an institution is filled with people who have problems with integrity, we can have no hope that the institution that person heads will apply principles of good governance,” he told the Post on Friday.
Despite the leadership performance being a collective task, he said Prasetyo had the chance to improve on the lackluster performance of previous councillors, saying the position would “determine greatly the political fate of the PDI-P in Jakarta”.
“Above all, it is time for the speakers to spearhead the improvement of the city council’s performance and become fighters for Jakartans’ aspirations,” he said.
