Propose Non-Party Presidential Candidates, DPD Wants Amendment To The 1945 Constitution

La Nyalla (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the DPD AA La Nyalla Mahmud Mattalitti invites DPD members to discuss so that the government and DPR seriously discuss the presidential nomination threshold or the presidential threshold rationally.

Because according to him, the best presidential threshold is 0 percent. In this way, the parties participating in the election can propose pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates.

"The more candidates that appear, the greater the opportunity to produce quality leaders," said La Nyalla when opening a seminar entitled 'Abolition of the presidential nomination threshold and the opportunity for individual presidential candidates' at Airlangga University, Surabaya, East Java, Tuesday, June 8.

Instead of waiting, he continued, the DPD chose to move quickly so that the people would not be faced with two pairs of candidates. The community will later continue to be able to make choices and democracy will be healthier.

"For the DPD RI, one of the steps that can be taken is the fifth amendment to the 1945 Constitution," said the East Java senator.

The reason, said La Nyalla, is that the first to fourth amendments still leave phrases and norms that allow the birth of laws that are detrimental to the nation. Including the issuance of Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections which postulates following the norms and sentence phrases in the constitution.

Meanwhile, regarding the opportunity for individual presidents and vice presidents or from non-party circles, according to La Nyalla, it is a dream to restore and restore the constitutional rights of the DPD RI in proposing the requirements for presidential and vice presidential candidates.

"It's called restoring because if you look at the history of the legislative body, the loss of the right of DPD RI to nominate candidates for president and vice president is a legal accident that must be addressed," he said.

In the past, according to La Nyalla, before the amendment to the 1945 Constitution, the president and vice president were elected by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which at that time consisted of the DPR and regional delegates and group representatives. This means that both the DPR as members of the MPR and members of the MPR from regional elements have the right to nominate candidates.

"The DPD RI was born through the third amendment to replace regional delegates, so the rights to determine institutions in Indonesia should not be castrated. This includes the right to propose presidential and vice presidential candidates," he explained.

"Besides, the DPD has strong legitimacy. If the regional representatives are elected exclusively by the provincial DPD, then the DPD RI members are elected through direct general elections to the people. This makes the DPD RI a non-partisan legislative body that has strong legislative rights. The president and vice president are rational," he continued.

La Nyalla said, reflecting on the results of the Grassroots Strategic Consulting (ASRC) survey released on May 22, 2001, it was found that 71.49 percent of respondents wanted presidential candidates not necessarily from party cadres and only 28.51 percent wanted presidential candidates from political parties. .

"This must be responded well, the DPD should be a channel for the expectations of 71.49 respondents from the survey who want a presidential candidate not to be from a party," said the chairman of the East Java Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Therefore, La Nyalla initiated the fifth amendment to the 1945 Constitution. This, he said, should be used as a momentum to make corrections to the direction of the nation's journey.

If a political party represented in parliament through the DPR can nominate a presidential and vice-presidential candidate, he added, then the DPD as a regional representative should ideally have the same opportunity to carry, for example one pair of presidential and vice-presidential candidates.