The Minister of Home Affairs: Government Will Issue Executive Order If Members of Parliament Do Not Pass the New Elections Law Bill Discussion On Time

The Chief of the Special Committee for the new Elections Law Bill, Muhammad Lukman Edy, says that members of the Special Committee will strive to agree on five crucial issues today (06/14). However, if members should fail to reach agreement, then they will conduct a voting process in the plenary meeting on June 19^th 2017.

“I can’t guarantee today we will reach a conclusive agreement. But we will try. If we should fail, we will conduct a voting in the upcoming plenary meeting,” says Muhammad.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Tjahjo Kumolo, says, the government will issue an executive order if members of the parliament and its Special Committee should fail to pass the Elections Law Bill on time. This executive order is necessary as the legal basis for the government to run concurrent elections in 2019 as mandated by the Constitutional Court (MK).

“If they fail to pass the bill on time, we will take over the matter by issuing an executive order so that we can run the concurrent elections in 2019 as mandated by MK,” says Tjahjo.

However, many parliament members disagree with the government issuing executive order. A parliamentary member from the National Mandate Party (PAN), Totok Daryanto, says that we should avoid executive order at any cost because an executive order will only increase distrust between legislative branch and executive branch of government. It will destabilize national politics, argues Totok.

“We will pass the bill on time. None of us is planning to create a deadlock in order to reinstate the old elections law. We don’t want any executive order. It’s risky,” says Totok.

Another parliamentary member from Golkar Party, Rambe Kamarul Zaman, says the same thing. “The government won’t issue executive order. It will only cause more problems. I believe the governmet is not that reckless.”