Not Discussing Election Bill During This Session, Dasco: DPR Will Be Careful In Making Constitutional Court Decisions

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Sufmi Dasco Ahmad /ANTARA / Bagus Ahmad Rizaldi.

JAKARTA - Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, ensured that the discussion of the draft Law on General Elections (RUU Pemilu) would not be discussed during this session.

Dasco said the DPR would be very careful in making changes to the Election Law after the decision of the Constitutional Court (MK).

Where in its decision, the Constitutional Court mandates the DPR and the government to conduct consolidational engineering or constitutional engineering. Therefore, Dasco said, intensive communication between factions is needed in the DPR.

"Maybe we haven't discussed the Election Bill at this trial because we are still informally talking between factions. Because this is the first time the Constitutional Court has decided on constitutional engineering," said Dasco, Thursday, June 26.

In its decision, the Constitutional Court has also provided five guidelines or limits in constitutional engineering, including ensuring that there is no dominance of certain political parties and maintaining the right of every political party to nominate a candidate pair.

The Constitutional Court even reminded that if there are 30 political parties participating in the election, there is the potential for 30 pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates to emerge.

Apart from being a new thing, Dasco said, constitutional engineering needs expert opinion. So that the DPR does not want to rush into discussing and ratifying the revision of the Election Law.

"Well, we certainly cannot take the constitutional engineering in a hurry. Apart from this, it is a new thing, engineering this constitution also needs opinions from experts who understand the constitution. Because we will be careful in making the Constitutional Court's decision," said Dasco.

Dasco explained that the DPR would convey to the public that the Election Bill was ready to be discussed. So far, he said, this has only reached informal inter-fractional talks.

"Yes, there are still informal talks that of course we cannot convey to the public. Because if we say that it is not a final thing, it will cause unnecessary dynamics," said the daily chairman of the Gerindra DPP.