IO, Jakarta – General Election Commission (Komisi Pemilihan Umum – “KPU”) Chairman Arief Budiman is confident that the ban on convicted corruptors from entering regional elections will be quickly agreed upon by the House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat – “DPR”) and passed into law. “We discussed it in many forums; they (DPR) agreed with the substance that there shouldn’t be any more convicted corruptors in regional elections,” said Arief from the Vice-Presidential Office in Jalan Medan Merdeka Utara, Tuesday (27/8/2019).
Arief stated that authority to introduce the ban on convicted corruptors from entering regional elections was wholly with the government and DPR. “We surrender it completely to the government and DPR. However, the KPU has actually already communicated this before, both to the government and DPR. Hopefully, they can respond quickly and well, so one of these points can be put into a legal revision,” he said.
According to Arief, putting the ban into law was important in order to avoid judicial review by the Constitutional Court such as had previously occurred. “In order to avoid the repeat of a proposal for judicial review which was then lost, it is indeed better to have it regulated by the law. However, last time the case was for legislative elections. Now, we are proposing it for the regional elections,” he said.
Meanwhile, Vice-President Jusuf Kalla (JK) stated that the ban would be entered into the election laws if the government and DPR shortly agreed upon it. According to JK, the election laws would go through heavy evaluation.
“Automatically all those (the ban) if agreed upon by the DPR and government could become law,” said JK from the Vice-Presidential Office on the same day.
JK stated that the election laws would be closely evaluated by the parties. “These election laws, I think soon they will be heavily evaluated by the parties such as the general elections together with the presidential elections, whether they be open or closed, I think they will be evaluated,” he said.
Relating to the ban, according to JK, this meant the public could choose ‘cleaner’ candidates. “At least if there are ‘cleaner’ people why look for people with problems,” he said. (dsy)