WE: Omnibus Law Job Creation Has The Potential To Create National Uprising

JAKARTA - The Presidium of the Coalition for Action to Save Indonesia (WE) Din Syamsuddin made an open letter to President Joko Widodo. One of the things mentioned in the open letter was the ratification of the Omnibus Law on Job Creation which was deemed to cause uproar at the national level.

"The tendency of the Government together with the DPR to pass bills to become laws such as the Minerba Law, the Perppu which is being accelerated into the Finance Law for Countering COVID-19, the Ciptaker Law or the Ciptaker Omnibus Law has the potential to cause huge national upheaval," Din said as quoted from the opening letter , Tuesday, October 6.

The attitude of the government and the DPR who rushed through this controversial law is also considered to have not opened up space for the public to give aspirations to the community. However, this did not only happen in the enactment of the Job Creation Law, according to Din, the government was also arrogant to defend the Pancasila Ideology Policy Bill (HIP) even though it had been sued by many organizations.

"We cannot understand whether the government is serious about creating a riot or on the contrary it wants to encourage the uproar itself," said Din.

In addition to the issue of the Ciptaker Law and the HIP Bill, the former General Chair of PP Muhammadiyah also highlighted other issues and concerns at this time, namely the matter of handling health during the COVID-19 pandemic. He considered that Jokowi's statement that would prioritize public health and safety over economic stimulus had not been proven to date.

He even said, currently the health budget allocation is very small compared to other economic stimulus budgets. As a result, it becomes difficult for the community because they have to be left alone with the costs of testing such as rapid testing or swab tests which are very much needed in the current COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the stance of the government and the Indonesian Parliament which insist that the 2020 Pilkada continue amid the COVID-19 pandemic is also in the spotlight. Moreover, the government has so far seemed to have been ignorant of the many inputs from community organizations asking that the implementation of the five-year party be postponed until conditions are more conducive.

"The government seems to be ignorant of the regional elections which have the potential to create new clusters of the spread of the epidemic and seem to close their eyes and ears to the aspirations of the people and feel they have the power to win their interests over those of the people at large," he said.

"This has the potential to cause uproar. If there is noise due to an unwise policy, it is not the people who are at fault and can be blamed, but the government is actually the cause of the commotion," he added.

Din also touched on other things, such as the Jiwasraya corruption case which seemed to be covered up, violence against religious leaders, to the attitude of law enforcement officials who were deemed not protecting the community. Including, protecting organizations or community groups guaranteed by the 1945 Constitution and one of them is WE.

According to him, he believed that the rejection of OUR activities in various regions was not a pure aspiration, but was allegedly engineered and even funded by certain individuals. It's just that the National Police is deemed not to protect and protect parties in proceedings and prevent other parties from intruding on the rights of others.

If these kinds of attitudes continue to occur, followed by neglect of people's aspirations, this is a sign of decline for Indonesia. In fact, this could create a bad image for President Jokowi in his last term of office.

"In the last period, President Joko Widodo can be remembered with the legacy of being the Father of Indonesian Democracy, not the other way around and the most important of all, Mr. President, is the importance of what he says and what he says," he concluded.