{"id":8168,"date":"2024-11-11T15:11:21","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T15:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/?p=8168"},"modified":"2026-04-08T17:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T17:41:08","slug":"august-surpsie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/?p=8168","title":{"rendered":"August Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Commentary by Wayne Forrest<\/em>\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The last week of August in the US is slow and sleepy; most people are on vacation. Its very possible some Outlook\/ Indonesia readers missed the fireworks in Indonesia. On August 22 the country erupted in major protests after the nation\u2019s Parliament attempted to pass legislation to overturn an August 20 decision at the Constitutional Court that had provided a fresh lift to independent political voices separate from the oligarchies that dominate Indonesia\u2019s political parties. Earlier, the country\u2019s Supreme Court had paved the way for President Jokowi\u2019s second son Kaesang, to run as a governor or deputy governor in November regional elections. He is only 29 and the election law stipulates 30 as the minimum age to run. The Supreme Court \u2013similar to the Constitutional Court\u2019s 2023 decision that \u00a0enabled #1 son Gibran to run for VP\u2014crafted a \u201cloose\u201d interpretation of the Election Law. The 2023 decision sparked widespread derision even among some Jokowi supporters. It led to an ethics investigation and the resignation of the President\u2019s brother-in-law from the Court. Another justice, who also supported the controversial VP decision left due to allegations of sexual impropriety.On August 20 without these justices the Constitutional Court gave a very different verdict from the one it handed down in 2023 and went a step further. Not only did it reverse the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling, reaffirm the age requirement blocking Kaesang\u2019s candidacy, it also lowered the percentage threshold for candidate slates from 20% to 6% of seats in Parliament. A day later, members of the Gerindra-led coalition supported by Jokowi began deliberations in Parliament to create a legislative \u201cfix\u201d to overturn the Constitutional Court by revising the 2016 Regional Elections Law. After the protests gathered strength and key members of the business community urged the legislators to end \u201cthe tug-of-war over short-term political interests\u201d [as one of them noted]Jokowi and Prabowo met and made the best practical decision: walk away from the effort.<\/p>\n

Indonesians, generous in their favor towards Jokowi, have apparently had enough of the accumulation of political chips and the spreading of favors to snare plumb positions for his sons and relatives after he steps down. If one thought Jokowi invincibly controlled all branches of government, this development indicates a major setback.<\/p>\n

It may well be that this is just a bump on the road to a coalescing of forces and parties akin to the New Order in pursuit of development. If so, it would be a shame, as many Indonesians who fought for 1998 democratic reforms believed that Jokowi was going to allow the country to finally turn the corner and away from the undemocratic allergies of the Suharto years.<\/p>\n

For me one of the the bright spots is that these protests were not about economics, they were about law and governance. Only time will tell how they may resonate in the next administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b(The views represented\u00a0are the writer\u2019s own and are not necessarily shared by members of the American Indonesian Chamber of Commerce)<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 2024 Commentary by Wayne Forrest\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b The last week of August in the US is slow and sleepy; most people are on vacation. Its very possible some Outlook\/ Indonesia readers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-indonesian-chamber-of-commerce","category-jokowi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9242,"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8168\/revisions\/9242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiccusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}