Indonesian president tries to overturn law ending direct elections
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Version 0 of 1. Indonesia’s outgoing president has returned home early from an overseas farewell tour to try to overturn legislation ending direct elections for local leaders. The bill, which Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had opposed before he left for his trip, passed when his ruling party decided not to vote and walked out of parliament in protest at not being able to add amendments. It ends a democratic reform in place since 2005 that had allowed the emergence of leaders free of links to the political elite, including the president-elect, Joko Widodo, who takes power on 20 October. Yudhoyono said on Tuesday he had been informed by the head of the constitutional court that he did not have the authority to block the legislation, but he would attempt to overturn it. “We will strive to save direct regional elections and there is a plan B that we will finalise later today. Our interest is only that our democracy remains for our people,” Yudhoyono told reporters after returning to Jakarta from a near two-week trip to Portugal, the US and Japan. Widodo, a former elected mayor and governor, has criticised the bill as a major step backwards for democracy. Before leaving for his trip, Yudhoyono spoke out in favour of retaining direct elections and the bill looked destined to be rejected. The mishandling of the situation has triggered only a few street protests in Jakarta and other major cities, with most of the criticism on social media. “Yudhoyono will be known not as a reformer or a democrat but as someone who let down the people of Indonesia,” said Robert Endi Jaweng, executive director of Regional Autonomy Watch, a local non-governmental organisation. |