Indonesia’s upcoming presidential and general elections have been thrown into disarray after a court in Jakarta ruled to delay voting by two and a half years, sparking widespread condemnation of the decision. The Central Jakarta District Court made the ruling after a relatively unknown political party, Prima, complained about not being allowed to register to contest the elections. A three-judge panel ruled that Prima was unfairly disenfranchised when it was unable to submit the required documents electronically due to an error caused by the General Elections Commission website. However, the decision to delay two elections to accommodate a fringe political party has angered many in Indonesia and raised questions about the court’s motives.
The ruling has been described as unconstitutional by many, including Titi Anggraini, an advisory board member of the Association for Elections and Democracy, and a constitutional law lecturer at Universitas Indonesia. “Ordering the postponement of the election until 2025 is an open violation of the constitution’s mandate,” she said. “The General Elections Commission should have just kept going with the stages and the existing schedule” for the elections. Niswan Harefa, a lecturer in State Institutions law at Santo Thomas Catholic University in Medan, agreed, saying that the lawsuit should have been heard by the administrative court.
Indonesia’s constitution mandates that presidents serve for five years, after which they can only be elected for one more term, meaning that they can only serve a maximum of 10 years in office. While the constitution was enshrined in law in 1945, following the country’s independence from the Dutch, the time limit of presidents serving only two terms was added in 1999. That addition occurred during the Reformation Period following the resignation in 1998 of Indonesia’s dictator President Suharto after 30 years in power and was designed to prevent subsequent presidents from emulating Suharto’s reign.
Over the years, however, there have been murmurs regarding an extension to the maximum number of times that a president can be elected, which could allow Indonesia’s current president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to serve a third term in office. For his part, Widodo has spoken out against any moves to remain in office longer, saying that he supports the General Election Commission’s decision to appeal against the Jakarta court’s decision to delay the votes.
Some have questioned if there may have been more to the judges’ decision than meets the eye, particularly when it appears that the original lawsuit launched by Prima made no reference to a need for the presidential and general elections to be postponed. Alex Arifianto, a research fellow at the Indonesia Programme at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told Al Jazeera that public sentiment around the decision remains high. “The only legal route for those who wish to change the presidential term is to amend the constitution,” Arifianto said, citing a survey from 2021 which found that 78 percent of Indonesians rejected any proposal to amend it.
Another survey conducted by pollster Y-Publica from February to March this year found that more than 81.5 percent of respondents were against the presidential and general elections being delayed. “Hence, anyone who insists on amending the constitution would run contrary to the vast majority of Indonesians who do not wish to have it amended to extend the president’s term in office,” Arifianto said. “Not to mention that it violates a constitutional norm that has been institutionalised for more than two decades since Indonesia became a democracy.”