Sania Mashabi, Jakarta – Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) Chairperson Asfinawati has revealed several indicators that show the Indonesian government wants to return to the era of Suharto’s New Order regime.
The first indicator, according to Asfinawati is the state of the political parties in parliament which do not want to listen to the ordinary people’s voices.
“So it’s very clear indeed that the political parties want to stay in power in the sense that the political parties don’t want to listen to the ordinary people, yeah, but want [power] for themselves, it’s very clear isn’t it”, said Asfinawati during an online discussion with Amnesty International titled What’s the News on the Fate of Controversial Criminal Code? on Tuesday July 7.
The second indicator is the existence of stipulations in the laws on the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), the House of Representatives (DPR), Regional Houses of Representatives (DPRD) and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) related to prohibitions on insulting lawmakers.
Then, the third indication is the electoral threshold for nominating a presidential candidate which is too high, namely having 20 percent of seats in the DPR or 25 percent of the popular vote in the legislative elections.
Meanwhile the final indicator is the revisions to the Criminal Code (RKUHP).
“Then there is the move to increase the electoral threshold for nominating a presidential candidate, this is what we refer to as the oligarchy wanting to maintain power for themselves”, she said.
“[And] in order to avoid sharp criticism they need the RKUHP”, she added.
Asfinawati also believes that the RKUHP that is currently being formulated by the DPR will make Indonesia return to the New Order (Orba) era.
“Correct (a return to the Orba era), the RKUHP is perhaps the culmination of this, yes. So it’s a kind of compilation of regulations to curb freedoms”, said Asfinawati.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “YLBHI: Parpol Tak Dengarkan Rakyat, tapi Maunya Sendiri, Itu Jelas Sekali...”.]
