Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Indonesia’s parliament backed away from a controversial attempt to change the country’s electoral laws after protests over what critics claimed was an attempted power grab by outgoing president Joko Widodo and his allies.
Demonstrators on Thursday clashed with police outside the parliament in Jakarta, trying to scale a fence into the building and attacking the gate.
Reuters news agency said security forces fired water cannons and tear gas to try to break up the protests, while protesters carried a mock guillotine featuring the face of the 63-year-old Widodo, who is widely known as “Jokowi”.
Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, deputy speaker of parliament, announced on Thursday evening that parliament would postpone the planned rules change, which would have lowered age limits for candidates to contest elections.
Prior to Dasco’s statement, critics of the election rule changes had been concerned parliament might pass the change later on Thursday after protesters were dispersed.
The planned change, which would have in effect reversed a constitutional court ruling earlier this week, was seen by Widodo’s opponents as a threat to Indonesia’s democracy that would have allowed the president to further extend his family’s influence over the country of 280mn.
It would have allowed Widodo’s youngest son Kaesang Pangarep, 29, to contest an upcoming election in the province of Central Java.
Widodo, who has been in power since 2014, will finish his second term in late October and hand over power to ally Prabowo Subianto, a 72-year-old former special forces commander who was elected in March. Another son of Widodo, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, will be Prabowo’s vice-president.
The relaxation on age limits was one of multiple changes to candidate nomination rules that parliament planned to confirm on Thursday and which critics said were designed to benefit Widodo and Prabowo.
During his decade in power, Widodo has proved popular with foreign investors and business thanks to his management of south-east Asia’s biggest economy.
But critics warn he has also sought to consolidate power around his family during his years in office. Gibran, 36, was himself able to stand as Prabowo’s vice-president earlier this year thanks to a constitutional court ruling excusing him from a minimum age requirement of 40. At the time the constitutional court was led by Widodo’s brother-in-law.
Read the full article here
