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MPR drops plan to amend Constitution before 2024
Assembly leaning toward holding constitutional convention.
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owing to public pressure over an alleged attempt to extend the presidential term, the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) made a unanimous decision to drop its plans to amend the 1945 Constitution in a bid to revive the State Policy Guidelines (PPHN).
Instead, a number of legislative factions plan to revisit the plan after the 2024 general election, even as the Assembly considers other available options, such as a “constitutional convention”.
It remains unclear whether the option of holding a convention refers to an accepted norm or tradition, or if it is adopting the example of the United States Constitutional Convention in 1787 that drafted the American constitution.
In his speech to mark the 77th anniversary of Indonesian independence on Tuesday, MPR Speaker Bambang Soesatyo of the Golkar Party faction announced that the Assembly would seek to reinstate the PPHN without amending the Constitution.
He cited difficulty in realizing the plan due to fears that the majority pro-government legislature would seek to extend the presidential term of incumbent Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
Earlier this year, several prominent figures from the coalition government proposed delaying the elections and extending Jokowi’s term beyond 2024, prompting pushback from government critics and civil society groups. Both changes would require amending the Constitution.
“Ideally, the [PPHN] should be regulated using an Assembly decree mandating a limited amendment of the 1945 Constitution. However, for the time being, as we have all come to understand, this idea is very difficult to realize,” Bambang told an audience of legislative, judiciary and executive officials on Tuesday.
“Therefore, considering that its urgency relates to the five-yearly [elections], the idea of [reintroducing the PPHN] will be achieved through a constitutional convention,” he said.
The idea to reinstate the State Policy Guidelines has been proposed many times since the last guidelines were repealed in 2004, most notably by the nation’s fifth president and leader of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Megawati Soekarnoputri.
However, the PDI-P withdrew its support for a constitutional amendment in March after it objected strongly to a proposal from coalition parties to delay the 2024 elections. Among the proponents of the controversial move was Golkar, the nation’s second-largest party.
A proposal to hold a constitutional convention to reinstate the PPHN was then put forward in late July by the Assembly’s assessment agency, spearheaded by PDI-P senior politician Djarot Saiful Hidayat, after the agency had reviewed the three options available to revive the PPHN: new legislation, an MPR decree or a constitutional amendment.
An ad hoc committee would be formed ahead of the Assembly’s next plenary meeting in September, Bambang said, when all political factions in the legislature, including factions from the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), would be able to share their views on the agency’s recommendations.
The committee would then be tasked with formulating the PPHN while the agency studied the technicalities of holding a constitutional convention.
Setting the agenda
In the same speech, Bambang also gave assurances that reintroducing the PPHN would “not undermine the country’s presidential system”, as a sitting president would “not be held accountable to the Assembly” regarding its implementation.
Speculation has grown among constitutional law experts, civil society groups and political party figures who believe that extending the presidential term, even for a popular president, would be unconstitutional and was contrary to the spirit of the first constitutional amendment in 1999.
However, this has not prevented different factions in the legislature from pushing ahead with their agenda.
Assembly Deputy Speaker Ahmad Basarah, from the PDI-P faction, said the party would reinitiate its plan to push for a limited constitutional amendment after the 2024 elections, using the recommendations produced “during the constitutional convention”.
This way, “the incoming 2024-29 batch of assembly [members] need not start from scratch when they decide to amend the Constitution”, Basarah said in a statement on Wednesday. The limited amendment would focus on Article 3 of the 1945 Constitution, which authorized the Assembly to formulate and revise the substance of the PPHN.
But PDI-P’s Djarot told reporters on Tuesday the party would ensure that an amendment would not change any other articles, including the articles that regulated the presidential term, stressing that the PDI-P would “withdraw its support” on any indication of such a move.
Meanwhile, the United Development Party (PPP) also expressed its support for postponing a constitutional amendment until after 2024, although it still preferred an Assembly decree issued during the current session.
“At the joint meeting [in July], I happened to be the one to propose that [a limited amendment] be carried out after the conclusion of the elections, but before the end of the current MPR’s term,” Assembly Deputy Speaker Arsul Sani from the PPP faction said on Tuesday.
The proposal to reinstate the PPHN has secured the backing of President Jokowi, a PDI-P member, even though he staunchly opposed the idea of amending the Constitution early in his second term.
“I highly appreciate the efforts of the MPR in […] reviewing the content and legal form of the State Policy Guidelines,” Jokowi said in his State of the Nation address on Tuesday.
