The election law derived from the constitution weakens the independence of the General Election Commission, including ensuring a minimum 30% women candidacy in each electoral district. The 2017 Election Law contains provisions that undermine the KPU in terms of recruitment, regulation formation, and budgeting, leading to vulnerability to interventions by members of the House of Representatives (DPR) through KPU regulations.
"The KPU should revise the PKPU (KPU Regulation), and political parties must implement the PKPU that has been established," explained Valina Singka Subekti, a political science academic at the University of Indonesia, during an online discussion titled “Jaga Kualitas Pemilu: KPU Patuh pada Putusan MA- DKPP Tegas Sanksi Penyelenggara [Maintaining the Quality of Elections: KPU's Compliance with the Decisions of the Supreme Court and the Election Organizer Honorary Council (MA-DKPP) on Strict Sanctions for Organizers] on October 6th.
Valina explained that a minimum of 30 percent women representation has become a national commitment to ensure an election with integrity. The Supreme Court's decision to annul Article 8, paragraph (2) of PKPU 10/2023 is not appropriate if the KPU responds by issuing internal circulars to political parties.
Valina highlighted the issue of the declining independence of the KPU. According to her, the independence of the election organizer is an integral part of the overall integrity of elections that should be reflected in their policies as a whole.
Furthermore, she elaborated that the issue of the KPU's independence is closely related to the initial construction of the institution. From the beginning, the KPU was not constructed to be the same as or equal to other institutions. She believes that the term "independence" implies that the KPU is not entirely independent, for example, with derivative regulations that increasingly bind the KPU in areas such as recruitment systems, regulation formulation, and election budgets.
"All of these factors prevent the KPU from being fully independent. That's why electoral organizers need to be supervised. It's not an issue, because even with the current level of pressure and oversight, there are still violated," she stated. []
AJID FUAD MUZAKI
Translated by Catherine Natalia
I
