Room Available to Negotiate Legislative Leadership

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JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The projection that the seats of the House of Representatives (DPR) from 2019 to 2024 would be dominated by a coalition of parties supporting the government has made political consolidation at the beginning of the term relatively smoother. In this regard, the majority coalition has indicated it is willing to make room for negotiations with a non-government coalition to share leadership positions in the legislature.

The 2019 election results, which were determined and announced by the General Elections Commission (KPU) in the early morning of Tuesday (21/5/2019), showed that nine political parties were expected to have the seats in the DPR. With a membership of five political parties, the coalition supporting Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Ma\'ruf Amin could be the dominant force in the DPR in terms of the number of seats.

The simulated conversion of political party votes into seats in the DPR conducted by the Kompas R&D division shows that five political parties supporting Jokowi and Amin would control 349 seats, 60.7 percent of the total 575 seats in the DPR. The five political parties are the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 128 seats, Golkar with 85, the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 58, Nasdem with 59 and the United Development Party (PPP) with 19. Meanwhile, four political parties supporting the ticket of Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno were projected to control 226 seats in the DPR. They are Gerindra with 78 seats, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) with 50, the National Mandate Party (PAN) with 44 and the Democratic Party with 54.

The composition of power supporting the government in the DPR this time is different from the beginning of the 2014-2019 term of Jokowi and Jusuf Kalla. By comparison, after the 2014 election, the Jokowi-Kalla coalition in the DPR only had 44.1 percent of the seats. That increased to 68 percent after Golkar, the PPP and PAN agreed to support the government.

DPR leadership

Referring to Law No. 2/2018 on the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), DPR, the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) and the regency/city legislative councils (DPRD), aka the MD3 Law, the distribution of the DPR leadership seats after the 2019 election are to be determined based on a proportional principle; the party winning the legislative election would automatically occupy the speaker’s seat in the House of Representatives, followed by the four next-most-voted-for parties filling the positions of deputy speakers of the House.

With the majority of seats, the coalition supporting the government in the DPR automatically controls almost all speaker and deputy speaker seats. Of the five leadership seats in the House, four are to be held by parties supporting Jokowi and Amin, namely PDI-P, Golkar, PKB and Nasdem. Meanwhile, Gerindra is the only non-coalition government party that holds a DPR leadership seat.

PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto said in Jakarta on Tuesday that with the new political map, the political dynamics in the DPR would be more conducive to passing the policies and laws of the government. Consolidation with non-coalition parties in the DPR is also believed not to be a problem. "We believe dialogue across coalitions will be much better. The contest is over; now all parties are looking to the next five years," Hasto said.

The deputy secretary-general of the Gerindra Party, Andre Rosiade, said that Gerindra would continue to carry out the role as a counterweight opposition and supervisor of governance. Despite being the only opposition party, he considered coordination at the DPR leadership level would not be disrupted.

Andre gave assurances that Gerindra would assign its best members to hold the leadership position in the DPR and effectively balance the government.

With this situation projected, the DPR is faced with the challenge of working harder from 2019 to 2024. The deputy director of the Center for Political Studies at the University of Indonesia, Hurriyah, said the legislature has not functioned optimally because it has never passed the ideal number of the bills.

Lili Romli, a senior researcher in the fields of politics and government at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, emphasized that the challenge that is no less difficult is to maintain the spirit of the DPR, as the representative body of the people, as clean and displaying integrity.

MPR leadership

The distribution of the leadership seats in the MPR can be more dynamic because the MD3 Law regulates it through a system that allows MPR members to determine it. Therefore, Hasto said, the coalition is ready to dialogue with non-coalition parties supporting the government.

"Our spirit is to mutually cooperate. To be sure, we intend the chair of the MPR to be filled by the coalition parties. The composition of the deputies can be discussed together," he said.

The coalition supporting the government has been fiercely contesting the leadership seats of the MPR internally. The five parties of the coalition are fighting for the four available leadership seats because one of the MPR deputy speaker seats is to be filled by an element of the DPD. Golkar, the PKB and Nasdem all want to supply the speaker.

Golkar announced it believed the party has the right to occupy the speaker’s chair as it won the second highest number of seats in the DPR. Golkar secretary-general Lodewijk F. Paulus said the party had long understood it would get the seat for supporting Jokowi and Amin, even though it was not officially agreed.

According to the PKB’s deputy secretary-general, Jazilul Fawaid, the distribution of the MPR leadership seats could be discussed without necessarily triggering a commotion. "The DPR this time should not repeat the previous events that made a commotion, a struggle for positions that did not work effectively," Jazilul said.

The coalition supporting Jokowi and Amin is also ready to cooperate with non-coalition parties at the MPR leadership level. Related to that, PAN secretary-general Eddy Soeparno emphasized that after this there would be no more polarization among the supporting parties. He said all party factions would work together to form an effective DPR. (AGE/SAN/SPW/SHR)

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