With Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama on his legally mandated leave during the four-month election campaign period, temporary governor Soni Sumarsono has taken over the Jakarta Provincial Government and managed to stir a lot of controversy during him limited time in office.
Sumarsono has already made some very unpopular decisions while filling in for Ahok – decisions that many believe Ahok would not have made himself. These include, but are not limited to, revising the 2017 draft of the Provincial Budget to include more allowances for City Council members (some of which were later struck down by the Ministry of Home Affairs), and, more recently, ordering a design change for the planned MRT trains in Jakarta (which is going to to cost the city an additional Rp 64 billion in production costs).
Universitas Indonesia lecturer Indra Krishnamurti on Monday created a petition on Change.org, addressed to President Joko Widodo, asking him to remove and indict Sumarsono for abusing his authority while in charge of the Jakarta Provincial Government. Among the violations of administrative laws committed by Sumarsono that Indra listed include erasing 1060 positions in the administration, giving grant money of Rp 7.5 billion from the city’s budget to a Betawi cultural group and making changes to budget policies – all of which cannot, by law, be performed by a temporary government official.
The petition has proved to be popular, gathering over 12,000 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon. President Jokowi has not issued any statement regarding the petition.
When asked about the petition against him, Sumarsono seemed unfazed.
“It’s fine. Be it 3,000 [signatures] or 1 million, it’s fine,” he said today, as quoted by Vivanews.
While he didn’t specifically address all of the accusations contained within the petition, Sumarsono said that he expected something like this would happen because he was always ready to take risks.
Sumarsono’s temporary term, if not ended earlier, will end once Ahok returns to his office on February 12.
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