After weeks of hand-wringing and backroom wheeling and dealing, lawmakers finally assembled today at the DPR (House of Representatives) in Senayan, Central Jakarta, to vote on the regional elections reform legislation.
As Coconuts Jakarta has written before, the bill on the table seeks to reinstate Suharto-era indirect elections of regional heads. Basically, that means lawmakers are voting today whether individual citizens should continue to be able to cast votes for mayors, governors, and other regional heads themselves (direct elections) or if that power should return to regional elections councils (indirect elections).
When lawmakers arrived for the plenary session, they were not received by the stately fountain and remarkably well-kempt greenery out front, but instead, this:
The occasion? A rally, and one that many feared could turn violent given the high stakes of the looming decision. Hundreds of citizens from an array of labor groups, student clubs and other in favor of keeping the direct elections status quo had gathered to protest against the bill. The vote has been delayed but is set to conclude by early evening.
Beginning around lunchtime, arriving demonstrators were met by a who’s who of Jakarta security forces, including the National Police, Mobile Police Brigade (Brimob), and even regular old traffic cops — who were there, ostensibly, to keep the peace.
Seems some of them just couldn’t handle the Jakarta heat.
In the morning, rumors spread that the demonstrations could turn ugly, but as of this afternoon, the rally has remained low-key, save for some fiery speech making.
Indeed, cheap Jakarta eats brought people together the way only watermelon in the hot sun can, as cops and protesters mingled together freely.
There was this small fire pit, though. Not sure what was burned.
Most Indonesians are against the reform, but that hasn’t stopped the bill from gaining steam among their representatives. According to sources inside, the vote is going to go down to the last minute and “anything is still possible.” If direct elections are scrapped, these largely peaceful protests could turn less so by night-fall.
As one student protester said, “We’re not doing this for ourselves, we’re doing this for all of Indonesia.”
Photos: Coconuts/Cory Rogers
