Indonesia votes to scrap direct elections for local leaders
President elect Joko Widodo suffered a setback on Friday when the parliament in Jakarta voted to stop direct elections for local leaders, despite widespread opposition
Indonesia’s parliament voted on Friday to scrap direct elections for local leaders, despite angry protests against the move and criticism that it will roll back a key democratic reform of the post-Suharto era.
After a heated debate lasting more than 10 hours, 226 lawmakers voted in favour of ending the current system of mayors, provincial governors and district heads being chosen by the public in the world’s third-biggest democracy.
“Directly elected leaders have a moral obligation to the people.”
Instead, local parliaments will be given the power to pick them, which critics says is a blow to the process of democratisation that was started after the downfall of the dictator Suharto in 1998 following three decades of authoritarian rule.
Opponents of the bill lost a huge bloc of support in the final stages of the debate when the ruling Democratic Party, which had been expected to vote against the move, walked out after conditions they had demanded could not be agreed on.
Only 135 lawmakers chose to retain the elections, in a vote that came after pro-democracy activists demonstrated the level of public anger at the plan by burning tyres outside parliament in Jakarta during a noisy protest.
“Democracy in this country has suffered a setback,” tweeted Ridwan Kamil, the directly elected mayor of Bandung, a city on the main island of Java.
