Usman Hamid: Mahfud's Decision To Resign From The Cabinet Should Be Followed By Other Ministers Who Participate In The Election

Vice Presidential Candidate Mahfud MD

JAKARTA - Executive Director of Amnesty International Indonesia (AII), Usman Hamid emphasized that the decision of Vice Presidential Candidate (Cawapres) Mahfud MD to resign from the position of Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) is very worthy of respect.

He said that any public official participating in the 2024 presidential election contestation has the potential to abuse state resources, not for the benefit of the state but for the partisan of the presidential candidate or vice presidential candidate.

"Therefore, this resignation should have been carried out by other ministers who wanted to be involved in the election contestation or involved in the practical political campaign for the election," he said in Jakarta, Friday, February 2.

Usman emphasized that the contestants for the 2024 presidential election and state officials who are campaigners should leave or resign to ensure that the public, state and ministry interests do not interfere with political interests.

Furthermore, he said, Mahfud's decision to resign occurred in the midst of the ethical crisis of state administrators, especially executives and legislatures.

In the legislative sector, he said, he did not see any more supervision in the running of the government, and there were practices at the executive level that deviated from ethics.

He gave an example, the Constitutional Court (MK) institution as one of the institutions that deviated from ethics when smoothing the way for President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), Gibran Rakabuming Raka to run as Vice President Prabowo in the 2024 presidential election.

Vice Presidential Candidate number 3 Mahfud MD immediately submitted a letter of resignation as Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs to President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).