The Supreme Court ruled on 30 May that the minimum age requirement for gubernatorial candidates applies not from when a candidate is nominated but for when they would be sworn into office. The ruling was widely interpreted as a carve-out to permit outgoing President Joko Widodo’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep, to run for governor of Jakarta in an election scheduled for 27 November. Kaesang will be 29 on election day but will turn 30 before he would be sworn in. In October 2023, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court made a comparable ruling that allowed Jokowi’s elder son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run (successfully) for vice president in the 2024 presidential election.

Sources: Jakarta Post, The Diplomat, International IDEA

Indonesia’s parliament and government have agreed on a bill that will shorten the tenure of Constitutional Court judges from 15 to 10 years, require approval from appointment authorities (the president, the Supreme Court, and parliament) every five years or be removed from office, and overhaul the court’s ethics counsel to add the president, parliamentarians and members of the Supreme Court. Some members of the court have clashed with outgoing President Joko Widodo’s administration in several high-profile occasions, most recently in a ruling over the validity of the most recent election. Legal experts warn the changes are intended to subjugate the powerful court to the legislative and executive branches and punish the three justices who dissented from a broader ruling supporting  dismissing electoral challenges in the 2024 general elections. Those three judges will be the first whose seats are up for review. Governing MPs argued the changes were politically neutral and aimed at ensuring the court’s accountability and efficacy.

Sources: Benar News, Reuters, Perludem

Indonesia held general elections on 14 February 2024 for president, vice president, both houses of parliament and local and regional offices. Final election results released on 21 March showed Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto and his vice presidential running mate Gibran Rakabuming, the son of outgoing President Joko Widodo, won 55.5 per cent of the votes on 82.39 per cent turnout. Prabowo's PDIP won 19.33 per cent of the votes in parliament, followed by Gerindra (12.57 per cent) and Golkar (12.31 per cent). The gender makeup of the incoming parliament is not yet available, but Indonesia’s gender quota requires that 30 per cent of candidates, and every third candidate on an electoral list, be a woman. The losing presidential candidates filed legal challenges to disqualify Prabowo and re-run the election, a not uncommon practice in Indonesian elections.

Sources: Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, Cabinet Secretariat of the Republic of Indonesia, Reuters

Indonesian civil society organizations and opposition parties have called for a parliamentary investigation into the 14 February general election and threatened to file cases with the Constitutional Court, alleging abuses of state resources by outgoing President Joko Widodo and criticizing the conduct of the General Elections Commission (KPU). The allegations include pressure on local politicians to support Prabowo in exchange for state funds, tampering with overseas votes, vote-buying, social media manipulation, and “logistical and administrative problems” in seven provinces, a required re-vote at over two thousand polling stations, and reports of destroyed ballots. Critics have also targeted the KPU, alleging a lack of transparency. Accusations of “suspicious” preliminary vote counts from civil society and political parties led the KPU to take its running tabulations offline on 5 March, prompting further criticism. Final vote tallies are due 20 March.

Sources: Jakarta Post, Fulcrum, East Asia Forum, Benar News, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Washington Post

The Indonesian parliament revised the Law of the Republic of Indonesia No. 11 of 2008 Concerning Electronic Information and Transactions (known as the electronic information and transaction law (ITE)) on 5 December to raise the necessary standard for defamation and halving the maximum penalty from four years imprisonment to two. Human rights activists and lawyers had criticized the broad application of the law since its passage in 2008 and argued that it was misused by politicians to stifle public criticism. However, critics said the changes did not go far enough and the standard for defamation under the law continued to be too low and therefore subject to abuse.

Sources: Benar News, Reuters

Constitutional Court Chief Justice Anwar Usman was removed from his leadership post and will not be allowed to decide on election disputes, the court’s ethics council decided on 8 November. The council disciplined Anwar for failing to recuse himself from the 16 October decision that changed candidate minimum age provisions that allowed his nephew - and President Joko Widodo’s son - Gibran Rakabuming Raka to run as a vice presidential candidate in 2024 general elections. The remaining judges who joined that opinion were also reprimanded. Legal analysts generally praised the ethics council’s decision, with some arguing that Anwar should have been removed from the court entirely. The ethics council does not have authority to question the validity of the ruling itself, but several petitions challenging the exception granted to Gibran are due to be shortly before the court.

Sources: Jakarta Post, The Diplomat