[From an oped piece in Kompas.com by Herlambang P Wiratraman titled "Instant Festival".]
It is not surprising if the public suspects that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's statement that the president is allowed to campaign and take sides is loaded with political interests.
The General Election Commission or KPU has emphasised that if he wants to campaign, President Widodo must submit a request for leave with himself (Kompas, 1/25/2024).
At the same time, the distribution of social assistance (bansos) by the government continues to be carried out during the campaign season, including stickers with pictures of Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, on bansos rice bags (Kompas, 1/26/2024).
This phenomenon ahead of the 2024 presidential election is indeed unusual. There have been a number of moments that were super-fast, took shortcuts, and appeared to be rushed, everything that is impossible become possible. The law and the work of the law were utilised to support phenomenon that seem unusual.
Sociologically, there is a normalisation of these uncivilised incidents. There are no indications of public criticism challenging it, unless it is channelled through the Election Supervisory Board's (Bawaslu) complaint mechanisms.
Of course, the results of addressing this feels far from the meaning of effectiveness. At this point, we should again reflect upon, why the elections that should be a mechanism for the political rotation of leadership in this country feel as if they're limited to democratic procedures, held hostage to the political interests of the dominant power of the Palace?
Symptoms of normalisation
Over the past year, there has been one fundamental thing that has been learnt from this situation of normalisation in electoral politics, namely the matter of the powerlessness of legal mechanisms to work to prevent conflicts of interest.
The most shocking incident occurred in 2023, when the Constitutional Court gave a red carpet to Gibran Rakabuming Raka, Widodo's son, to step forward in the 2024 presidential election. In essence, Constitutional Court ruling Number 90/PUU-XXI/2023 declared that Article 169 letter q of Election Law Number 7/2017, which stipulates that presidential and vice-presidential candidates must be at least 40 years old, was contrary to the 1945 Constitution and does not have binding legal force.
Indeed, the Constitutional Court Honorary Council (MKMK) subsequently dismissed Gibran's uncle Anwar Usman from his position as Constitutional Court chief justice because he was proven to have committed a serious violation of the ethics code in the judicial review of the election law (7/11/2023).
Gibran's vice-presidential nomination however continued. No one questioned the state of dynastic politics more strongly because the political dishes of normalisation continued to be served up...
Herlambang P Wiratraman is a lecturer in constructional law and the chairperson of the Centre for Legal Studies and Social Justice at the Gadjah Mada University (UGM) faculty of law in Yogyakarta.
The full article in Bahasa Indonesia can be read here: https://www.kompas.id/baca/opini/2024/02/04/pesta-karbitan=====
