Violence outside Indonesian parliament as new MPs are sworn in
"Indonesian court rejects appeal against election result "Expat Indonesians in Australia queue for hours to vote in presidential election" "
By James Massola and Karuni Rompies October 1, 2019 — 3.06pm
Jakarta: Heavily-armed security forces stood guard in front of Indonesia's parliament on Tuesday as thousands of protesters attempted to disrupt the swearing in of 575 MPs.
The new slate of MPs, who were elected in the April 17 poll, enter Parliament amid weeks of protests across the country over proposed changes to the country’s penal code, agrarian and mining laws that have been delayed, the passing of a law that critics argue has weakened the national anti-corruption commissions, forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra, and violence in Papua.
National police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Tuesday that "we expect around 5000 students will be on the streets today. But we will stop them going near the parliament building".
A student throws a rock at police in front of the People's Representative Council building in Jakarta. Getty Images
He said it was likely the protests would continue into the evening and potentially turn violent, as they had on Monday evening and last week. "Usually it's other people, not students, who are protesting in the evening," he added.
At least three protesters have died during the protests across the country and hundreds of people have been injured.
Hundreds of protesters set tyres on fire and threw rocks, firecrackers and petrol bombs at police during the clashes on Monday evening near the Parliament, in suburban south Jakarta. The police responded with water cannons and tear gas.
Similar clashes occurred in other Indonesian cities, including in West Java's Bandung city; in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province; and in President Joko Widodo's hometown of Solo city in Central Java – where an angry mob threw rocks at police, injuring at least four female officers in the head.
Protesters are angry about the watering down of the nation's corruption watchdog, among other things. Getty Images
Before the protests turned violent students and trade union activists had gathered outside the parliament chanting "Reformasi Dikorupsi" (reform corrupted), a reference to the political reforms that swept Indonesia and brought democracy after the fall of dictator Soeharto in 1998.
Budi Luhur University students Samudra and Aleka said they wanted the President to drop the penal code bill, rather than just delaying it for debate by the new slate of MPs who will be sworn in.
"We reject all bills that are irrelevant and illogical," Samudra said, pointing out that for example "homeless people will be fined because wandering around will not be allowed any more".
"The government made ridiculous policies, regulating some unimportant issues. For instance, if someone’s pet goes into his or her neighbour's garden, the pet’s owner will be fined with Rp10 million ($1000). This is insane, it's so insignificant," Aleka said.
What's causing the protests?
1. Weakening of Indonesia's effective anti-corruption watchdog
2. Changes to the penal code that would outlaw cohabitation and sex outside wedlock
3. Ongoing violence and killings in Papua, allegedly sparked by racism
4. The delay of agrarian and mining laws
5. Ongoing forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra and violence in Papua
"I think a bylaw is sufficient for such trivial issues, don’t put it into a penal code. Millions of ordinary people are not aware of these things. That’s why we are here, to reject all bills such as the penal code, KPK [anti-corruption commission] laws and other bills."
President Joko last week said he would consider issuing .. https://www.smh.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p52vk5 .. a perppu – a presidential directive that can override a law passed by Parliament – to stop the legal changes to the KPK being implemented. That suggestion came after the President had asked the outgoing Parliament to halt in its rush to pass the penal code changes.
The President had previously indicated support for the corruption commission law changes, and for the penal code.
Humans Rights Watch Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono said the protesters had already had an impact by forcing the delay to the penal code and other bills being passed, and that protests were spreading throughout the country.
A police spokesperson said protesters would not be allowed to disrupt the swearing in of MPs. Getty Images
"The protests are in major cities across the country, almost all provincial capitals," he said.
"The demands are not easy to meet. How do you demilitarise Papua? How do you bring corporations to court [for the forest fires] when many of the plantations are owned by proxy after proxy company?"
"There is some low hanging fruit for Jokowi. For example, issuing the perppu on the KPK."
And in an unusual move UNICEF, the United Nation's Children's fund, issued a statement on Tuesday calling for "all parties to protect children against violence and uphold their right to express themselves in a safe environment".
The organisation highlighted special provisions in Indonesia’s criminal justice system that stipulate deprivation of liberty and imprisonment are a last resort, that children under 18 can be detained for no more than 24 hours, have access to a lawyer, and have to be kept separately from adults.
Many of the protesters involved in the protests across the country have been school children.
"Indonesian court rejects appeal against election result"
The government hopes the measure will draw investment. Labor leaders say that workers’ protections will be slashed, particularly for women.
VIDEO - Protesters and Police Clash in Indonesia’s Capital By The Associated Press and Reuters Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators in Jakarta, Indonesia, in the third day of a nationwide strike against a new law slashing worker and environmental protections. Ed Wray/Getty Images
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Riot police officers fired tear gas and water cannons in Indonesia’s capital on Thursday as they tried to disperse large crowds of people protesting a sweeping new law that slashes protections for workers and the environment.
In cities and towns throughout Indonesia’s vast archipelago, tens of thousands of workers took part in the third day of a national strike against the deregulation law. Workers marched on foot and rode in motorbike parades as sound trucks blared protest messages. Union leaders denounced Parliament and President Joko Widodo [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joko_Widodo ] for pushing the measure through.
In the center of Jakarta, the capital, protesters assembled in defiance of a city ban on gathering during the pandemic and tried to march to the presidential palace. Some threw rocks at the police and set fires in the city center, burning a police post and two transit stops. The police said officers had detained more than 800 people in Jakarta, while leaders of the national strike distanced themselves from the violence and said that the city’s protests were not affiliated with the labor action.
Around the country, the strike has been largely peaceful, although protesters clashed with the police in some cities. Organizers said protests were held in more than 60 locations, stretching from Aceh Province in the west to Papua Province more than 3,000 miles east. They estimated that about one million people joined the walkouts each day, though that figure could not be verified.
Protesters in Banda Aceh on Thursday as part of a nationwide strike. Organizers said demonstrations were held in more than 60 places. Chaideer Mahyuddin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Opponents of the new statute, a 905-page omnibus measure that amends more than 75 laws, say that it benefits the wealthy elite by allowing companies to cut workers’ pay, eliminate days off and hire contract workers in place of permanent employees. It will affect women most of all, they say, by allowing companies to eliminate paid maternity and menstrual leave.
“The president is paying back the financiers who helped him win the election, not ordinary people who voted for him,” said Ermawati, 37, a leader of a factory strike in East Java who like many Indonesians uses one name. “They are killing us with the omnibus law.”
Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous country, has the largest economy in Southeast Asia but has found itself at a disadvantage when competing with some of its neighbors for foreign investment, particularly Vietnam, a centralized Communist state that can move swiftly to offer investors land and incentives.
Indonesia, which has been a democratic country since the fall of the Suharto dictatorship more than two decades ago, every five years holds the world’s largest direct presidential elections. But its decentralized government is notoriously bureaucratic and difficult to navigate.
Plainclothes officers detained a protester in Jakarta. Mast Irham/EPA, via Shutterstock
The coronavirus pandemic has hit the country harder than any other in the region, infecting more than 320,000 people and throwing an estimated six million out of work, adding to the seven million already unemployed. The government expects the economy to contract this year for the first time since the Suharto era.
Bahlil Lahadalia, the head of the government’s Investment Coordinating Board, said the new law would make it easier for jobseekers to find work, including another three million people who enter the work force annually.
He said that 153 companies were ready to invest in Indonesia once the law takes effect, creating many new jobs.
“This is a law for the future, not the past,” he said. “There are complaints from businesspeople that it is difficult to get permits due to overlapping regulations, expensive land and expensive workers,” he said. “This job creation law is the answer to that.”
President Joko, a onetime furniture manufacturer and mayor, casts himself as a man of the people who has their interests at heart. As president, he has focused on economic development, particularly building roads, ports and airports.
But many opponents of deregulation feel betrayed by Mr. Joko, who won a second term last year, and are urging him to issue a regulation canceling the most damaging provisions of the law.
Workers say their viewpoint was not considered during deliberations.
Students and laborers demonstrating in Bandung, West Java. Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images
Disappointment was evident after Parliament approved the law, and the phrase #pindahnegara — shorthand for “move to another country” in the Indonesian language — trended on Twitter. Major news outlets posted tips on how to emigrate.
Women such as Ms. Ermawati, a laboratory analyst, have been taking a leading role in the protests because they believe the law will harm women most of all.
A leader of the Indonesian Metal Workers Federation, she says the law could cut her pay by more than half. She helped organize a walkout of about 1,100 workers — nearly all of them women — that began Tuesday at the PT Aneka Tuna Indonesia, a fish cannery in Pasuruan Regency.
At a rally outside the factory, she denounced the law, especially a provision allowing companies to end paid leave specifically for women.
“When they listened to my speech, all of them cried,” Ms. Ermawati said by telephone, referring to the workers. “The most burdensome is the omission of menstruation and maternity leave. As a woman, it also brings me to tears.”
She asked, “Where is their conscience?”
Police said officers had detained more than 800 people in Jakarta on Thursday. Dita Alangkara/Associated Press
But persuading the president to withdraw this year’s bill is unlikely, since it was Mr. Joko and his government who pushed for the law’s approval, ending with its easy passage on Monday .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/world/asia/indonesia-stimulus-bill-strike.html . Opponents are urging Mr. Joko either to not sign the law or to use his power to prevent the contentious provisions from taking effect.
If Mr. Joko does not yield, the union will go to court and try to block the law’s implementation, said Said Iqbal, the president of the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation and a leader of the strike.
On Batam, an island near Singapore, Djafri Rajab, a machinist, helped lead a three-day walkout of 60 workers, nearly a third of the employees at PT Djitoe Mesindo, which makes machines for manufacturing cigarettes.
He worries about the potential loss of his job as the economy sinks and a provision in the law that would allow companies to reduce severance pay from 32 months’ to 19 months’ pay.
“There’s no worker who’s not afraid of layoffs, especially in this time of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Mr. Djafri, who has three children, including a 5-month-old baby. “Indonesia is in recession. Getting a new job is very difficult.”
He is also concerned about younger workers who may not be able to find jobs that provide pensions and other benefits as they enter the work force.
“We also hope as many as possible investors come to Indonesia, but don’t castrate the workers’ rights,” he said. “Government exists to guarantee the rights of every citizen to have a decent life.”
Moving on --- Indonesia election: An 'impossible' country tests its hard-won democracy
2019 -- "Indonesian court rejects appeal against election result "Expat Indonesians in Australia queue for hours to vote in presidential election" Losing candidate Prabowo Subianto had claimed April’s poll was rigged against him"
1 day ago
Students protests in 1998 brought down a dictator - but Indonesia's young democracy is on an edge again BBC/ Jonathan Head
By Jonathan Head South East Asia correspondent
Budiman Sujatmiko has lost none of the passion that he used to show as one of the boldest student opponents of Suharto, the soft-spoken but ruthless dictator who ruled Indonesia for 32 years.
"In the 1990s our challenge was authoritarianism. We needed democracy. Today our challenge is inequality and backwardness," Budiman says in his campaign office, ahead of Indonesia's presidential race on 14 February.
In a scarcely believable twist, Budiman is now a spokesman for Prabowo Subianto - the frontrunner in the race, Suharto's son-in-law and the man who epitomises that authoritarian era. The former special forces commander has been accused of a string of human rights violations, and was sacked by the army in 1998.
"People change after 25 years, just like I have changed," Budiman says. "We have both moved to the middle."
It's a stunning turn of events. The once-disgraced military strongman and the fiery activist now find themselves on the same side in a democratic election. As unlikely as that alliance may seem, it helps tell the story of Indonesia's young, rowdy democracy.
As BBC correspondent in Jakarta in the late 1990s I reported on Budiman's courageous opposition to Suharto, and on his trial, where he delivered an hours-long, stinging rebuke of the government's repressive habits. I visited him in jail. I watched Prabowo manoeuvring in the power struggle that broke out amid the chaos of Suharto's last days, then being out-manoeuvred and cast out. I watched the euphoria of student protesters ousting a ruler who had dominated their lives and the lives of their parents. Those were heady days.
Yet today Indonesian politics is dominated by the same powerful, wealthy figures who prospered under Suharto.
The violence that accompanied Suharto's fall from power led to predictions that Indonesia would break apart BBC/ Jonathan Head
Some have called Indonesia an impossible country. It shouldn't work, but it does - with its kaleidoscopic range of political parties representing one of the largest and most diverse populations on the planet. The 17,000 islands - and 700 languages - that make up the archipelago are spread over an area as large as the United States. It's a fast-growing economy, but with millions of its people still living in poverty.
Yet it has proved remarkably stable. Defying predictions that it would implode, like Yugoslavia, Indonesia has had just two directly elected presidents over a 20-year period, both of whom have been moderate, effective and popular, delivering steady economic growth.
What worries many Indonesians now, though, is what will happen to their democracy if Prabowo wins?
Foes to friends
From the campaign trail, Indonesia's democracy - the third largest in the world - appears to be in rude health.
Gone is the heated, sectarian divide of the last presidential contest in 2019, when President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, then seeking a second term, faced a determined rival in Prabowo who mobilised hard-line Muslim groups to contest the result. A week of rioting left at least 10 dead.
This time Prabowo, in his third attempt at the presidency, has teamed up with the still-popular Jokowi, who cannot run again. He has taken Jokowi's son as his running mate and stuck with his development-focussed policies. You will get more of the same, he is promising, and it seems to be working. The platforms of other two candidates, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, differ little in essentials.
The presidential debates have been largely calm and courteous. Rallies have been boisterous and full. Turnout on polling day will be high.
But Prabowo's dark past still looms - despite Jokowi's backing and a slick social media campaign that has transformed the image of the military hard man who dabbled with inflammatory populism into a cuddly grandfather figure.
"I want to ask Prabowo: 'Where is my son? If he's dead, tell me where his body is. If he's still alive, where is he?'" says Paian Siahaan.
His son, Ucok, disappeared in the last months of the Suharto regime in 1998. The unit Prabowo commanded was held responsible for the kidnapping of 23 activists. One died and 13 have never been found.
Paian Siahaan has been waiting for 17 years to find out what happened to his son BBC/ Jonathan Head
Their families have gathered outside the presidential palace in Jakarta every Thursday for the past 17 years. Many are elderly. They want answers, and more than anyone else, they blame Prabowo.
Paian Siahaan, now 78 and a widower, makes the long journey every week from his home in Depok to join the protest. He showed me the back of his T-shirt, which read: "Bring back the disappeared. Don't let him rule the country."
"It is because he is a kidnapper," Paian says. That isn't the only accusation against Prabowo: an ambitious, intelligent and hot-tempered officer who, as Suharto's son-in-law, was a fast-rising star in the military.
He has also been accused of involvement in serious human rights abuses during Indonesia's 24-year occupation of Timor Leste. He had several tours of duty there, and was part of the military unit which killed the Timorese leader Nicolao Lobato at the end of 1978.
Many believe he was also responsible for instigating riots in Jakarta and other cities in May 1998, which targeted the ethnic Chinese minority, and ultimately forced Suharto to resign.
Prabowo has always denied involvement in that, arguing that he was a scapegoat. He has admitted only to ordering the kidnapping of the nine activists who survived.
Prabowo in East Timor in the late 1970s Prabowo Subianto/FB
But I recall a meeting with him in early 1998, when he was very angry with the Chinese business community, blaming them for the massive financial crisis which had engulfed Indonesia. He threatened to bring Muslim mobs onto the streets against them.
After Suharto stepped down, the army dismissed Prabowo over the kidnappings, and he spent more than a year living in exile in Jordan.
For Budiman, now Prabowo's spokesman, these are matters of the past, just like his own resistance. He now believes his energy should be channelled in a different direction.
"I am not idealistic. I am pragmatic but I am also ethical," he says. "I should not be limited to fighting for freedom and justice. I also believe in Indonesia's advancement."
This is from a man who was sentenced to 13 years in jail for opposing Suharto. At his trial, he read aloud a manifesto for four hours, detailing the defects of Suharto's regime. "It is to the people that every power must be devoted, and it is from the people that power comes," he had declared.
You hear a fair amount of scorn for Budiman now. One of his former comrades told me he would punch him if he saw him.
But even as a young radical he was obviously smart and ambitious, a natural politician. He makes no effort to conceal his ambition - on the wall of the waiting room in his campaign office hang portraits of all seven of Indonesia's presidents, followed by Prabowo, and then Budiman himself.
As a relatively new entity, compared to the other big parties in this election, Prabowo's political machine offers more opportunities for a politician in a hurry.
Budiman Sujatmiko outside prison in 1998 - and now at his campaign office
And Budiman isn't alone. Six out of the nine survivors of the 1998 kidnappings have either worked for Prabowo, or are backing him for president. Their reasons aren't too different to Budiman's.
Indonesia has changed and so must they, goes the argument. Even a strongman like Prabowo, whom they once opposed, is at the mercy of the ballot box now.
At a recent rally, Prabowo introduced Budiman by joking about the way activists were hounded by the security forces under Suharto. "Sorry man, I used to chase after you too - but hey, I apologised."
But then at the violent peak of their bitter rivalry in 2019 Jokowi and Prabowo also patched up their differences with minimal fuss. Jokowi offered Prabowo the job of defence minister, a powerful position which forced the US to drop the visa ban it had imposed over his human rights record.
Jokowi was the first Indonesian leader with no links to the old political elite, whose humble origins drove his appeal. He had no party machinery of his own, and relied on his skill in co-opting his rivals to be able to govern and push through his signature development projects.
But he hobbled the once-independent anti-corruption commission. He ushered in a sweeping cyber-crime law that has been used to prosecute hundreds who have criticised the government. Then he got his son on the ticket as Prabowo's running mate, through a controversial ruling at the constitutional court, on which his brother-in-law was a sitting judge.
All of this has uncomfortable echoes of the authoritarian Suharto era. The dictator, like Jokowi, was from the cultural heartland of central Java. He styled himself the "Father of Development" - and that has been at the heart of Jokowi's legacy too, much of it funded by Chinese investment.
Prabowo's slick social media campaign has been a hit with young voters BBC/ Jonathan Head
"He's a brilliant politician, but not necessarily a good leader," says Okky Madasari, a novelist and sociologist who has produced a series of video debates warning of the dangers of a Jokowi-Prabowo axis.
"That kind of person is a threat to Indonesian democracy. Why? Because he is not thinking about his country. He is only thinking about how to preserve his power, and to give it to his family, to his sons."
What these political compromises have given Indonesia is stability - in his second term Jokowi had the support of parties holding more than 80% of the seats in parliament.
An 'impossible' country
"We are always worried about disintegration," says Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an academic who has been adviser to one president and two vice-presidents.
Back in 1999, she was a close adviser to President Habibie, who had the unenviable job of holding Indonesia together in the post-Suharto turmoil. "He used to say he was the captain of an aircraft which was crashing, but everybody was attacking the captain."
There was communal violence all over the country, some of it shockingly brutal. I watched Muslims and Christians tearing each other apart in the Moluccas. One month later I saw people in Kalimantan beheading and disembowelling their neighbours. In Aceh, the army was struggling to contain a strong and popular independence movement. And President Habibie had agreed to a referendum in East Timor, which would eventually declare its independence.
To my question then, that would Indonesia consider letting Aceh go as well, Dewi had retorted that Indonesia was either the former Dutch East Indies or it was nothing. Did the West really want to see it break up like an Asian Yugoslavia?
"You know being united is always a premium for us," she says now. "And that means making big tent, rainbow coalitions in government, as Jokowi has done."
But she adds: "If you go too far in that direction, it's very difficult to build a strong democracy, because then you don't have credible checks and balances, you don't have a credible opposition."
Indonesia absorbed the chaos of Suharto's fall, triggered by student protests in 1998 BBC/ Jonathan Head
But soon violence erupted in various parts of the country BBC/ Jonathan Head
A last-minute campaign has got going online, using a four-fingered salute, to distinguish from those used by the three candidates to match their registered election number, to try to persuade voters to back "anyone but Prabowo".
It is not clear yet how effective it has been. But the Prabowo campaign is pushing hard to win outright in the first round and avoid a runoff, where the four-finger campaign might pick up momentum.
A couple of students at a Prabowo youth rally told me they felt his message was more relevant to the young - around one-third of the electorate is 30 years old or younger with no memory of the Suharto era.
When I asked what policies appealed most, they were not sure. They just liked the tone and style of the messaging. And they felt anyone backed by Jokowi must be a good thing.
In 1998, an inflexible, 32-year-old regime struggling to cope with the new forces of globalisation was the obvious target for frustrated youth. They wanted freedom and prosperity as Indonesia was hammered by a massive economic meltdown.
Today, after decades of stability and some prosperity, young Indonesian voters seem more likely to respond to an entertaining message - such as Prabowo's TikTok-fuelled campaign - than an inspiring one.
Can their democracy survive a Prabowo presidency?
The Indonesian state - built up methodically by Suharto - has survived much. The violent upheavals of the late 1990s, rising jihadist terrorism in the early 2000s that many thought would unravel it, the experiment with democracy - Indonesia has absorbed it all, mellowing it in the name of stability and peace.
There is a price to pay, in rights and freedoms no longer respected, and past abuses unacknowledged and unaccounted for.
Many Indonesians wish it were better. But they know it could be a lot worse. They only have to look across to Myanmar, in many ways a similar kind of impossible country, to know that.
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