Even though he lost the recent presidential election, it looks like Prabowo Subianto will get to make major rollbacks to Indonesian voting rights that he has long supported and political analysts have been warning us about since back in July.
The Regional Election Bill (RUU Pilkada) that is currently making its way through the House of Representatives (DPR) would take away the ability of Indonesians to directly elect their governors, mayors and district heads, giving th power to choose those officials over to the local legislature (DPRD).
The bill has the support of every party in the Merah Putih Coalition, which was formed by Prabowo and supporters of his canidadcy a week before election day. The coalition currently controls 63% of the legislature.
Although the bill was first proposed in 2010, it didn’t gain any serious backers until about two weeks ago. And right now, the Merah Putih Coalition has the numbers to do it.
Critics have argued that the coalition’s sudden support of the bill was an attempt to sneak it in before the end of the current DPR’s term on Sept 30. In an excellent piece by senior journalist Jet Damazo-Santos on Rappler, titled “Prabowo revenge? New bill puts voting rights at risk,” she makes the case that the Merah Putih Coalition is supporting RUU Pilkada in an attempt to gain bargaining power with President-elect Joko Widodo’s new government, hoping to get major concessions in exchange for backing off from the bill.
One of the reasons it’s a convincing argument is that it answer the question of why the Merah Putih Coalition has remained strong, despite the dominant theory that it would be short-lived after Prabowo’s loss was finalized.
By standing united in support of RUU Pilkada, the Merah-Putih Coalition is indeed in an excellent position to negotiate with Jokowi’s administration. But looking back at Prabowo’s rhetoric from early July, when he clearly advocated ending the direct election of local officials, it also seems clear that this was something the ex-Army General was planning all along, whether he won the presidency or not.
In a series of articles much read by Indonesian policy wonks during the elections, Edward Aspinall and Marcus Mietzner, Indonesia politics specialists at Australian National University, wrote about their fears of a Prabowo presidency that could plunge Indonesia into a new era of authoritarian rule.
In “Indonesia’s Democracy is in Danger,” they outlined the reasons why they thought Prabowo was such a threat, including his “authoritarian past and his personal record of responsibility for human rights violations.” In another article, “Prabowo Subianto: vote for me, but just the once,” they analyzed comments made by the ex-Army General regarding need for a “new kind of democracy” in Indonesia. They said Prabowo’s comments demonstrated his belief that “direct elections were not compatible with the Indonesian cultural character,” and also “gave a strong signal that he wishes to do away with the practice.”
Some people regarded Aspinall and Mietzner’s arguments as alarmist and overstated, including Prabowo, who responded personally to the accusations that he was anti-democratic.
But in his response, Prabowo actually only reinforced fears that he would get rid or direct elections, arguing that doing so would be more in line with Indonesia’s original 1945 constitution. He also argued that allowing legislative councils to choose officials would be cheaper and lead to less corruption, both talking points that Merah Putih Coalition members are now using in defense of their support for RUU Pilkada.
When Prabowo announced the formation of the Merah Putih Coalition, he emphasized that it would be a “permanent” coalition that would last for five years. And despite most predicitons, the coalition doesn’t look ready to crack anytime soon. And why should they? If they pass RUU Pilkada, the Coalition, with its hold on a majority of the legislature, will have enormous power to block Jokowi’s agenda and appoint their own officials.
One might even go so far as to argue this was Prabowo’s main contingency plan in the event he lost the election. Even his critics would agree that Prabowo is a cunning politician and smart tactician. And at some point, probably even before presidential election results were finalized, Prabowo knew there was no way he could gain the nation’s top office.
So was his challenge of the presidential election results at the country’s Constitutional Court, a challenge severely lacking in evidence, coherence and even proper spelling, merely a media circus diversion while he secretly rallied his coalition to ram RUU Pilkada through when they hoped nobody would be looking?
Regardless of whatever machinations Prabowo may have had, at the moment, Indonesians are definitely being threatened with an end to their recently gained, and hard won, voting rights. And with so much power vested in the legislature, even worse rollbacks to democracy could come soon after.
Fortunately, critical backlash against the bill has been quick and resounding. Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama resigned from Prabowo’s Gerindra Party in rather spectacular fashion in protest over RUU Pilkada, while directly elected regents and mayors from across the country have come together in opposition to the bill.
But at the moment, there’s no avoiding the simple fact that the Merah Putih Coalition has the votes to get RUU Pilkada passed. And they have shown no signs of faltering in their support of the bill. Considering how much power they stand to gain from the bill, it would take either enormous concessions from Jokowi’s administration or a huge public backlash to get them to back away from the bill.
With such a short amount of time until the bill is passed, we hope that the voting public at large will start to protest en masse against the bill. Otherwise it looks like Prabowo will be able to get his win after all.
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