The Postponement Of The 2024 Election Is A Bad Signal For Indonesia's Economic Growth

The decision of the Central Jakarta District Court (PN Jakpus) regarding the postponement of elections in the Prima Party case has the potential to disrupt the investment climate in Indonesia.

Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios) Bhima Yudhistira assessed that the decision could trigger a slowdown in national economic growth.

"So, the postponement of the election is a bad precedent for economic growth this year until 2024," he said when contacted by VOI, Friday, March 3.

According to Bhima, currently business actors have started borrowing money from banks, preparing for additional job recruitment, and even dare to increase production capacity.

However, with information regarding the postponement of the election, economic activity is considered to be disrupted.

"As soon as the election delays appear, it is uncertain what the plan was, it even leads to losses. From the investor side, when there is an issue of postponement of the election, they will wait and see longer," he said.

Furthermore, said Bhima, the investment plan was originally in place this year, but it must be delayed and predicted that it will only return in 2025.

"In the survey of ease of doing business, the biggest problem besides corruption is political uncertainty and policy. Therefore, postponing elections greatly damages investment prospects," he concluded.

Previously, the Central Jakarta District Court (PN) ordered the General Election (Pemilu) to be postponed for about two years or until 2025. This is a decision that won the civil lawsuit filed by the People's Fair and Prosperous Party (Prima).

Initially, the Prima Party sued the KPU to the Central Jakarta District Court because it felt aggrieved by the election organizers. This is because the KPU stated that the Prima Party did not meet the requirements in undergoing registration and verification of political parties that would participate in the 2024 General Election.

As a result, the Prima Party could not continue the election stages to factual verification. The Prima Party did not accept it. In their study, Prima said that the KPU was not careful in carrying out administrative verification.

Prima also views the Political Party Information System (Sipol) as problematic and causes the party to fail in the administrative verification stage.

Prima's civil lawsuit to the Central Jakarta District Court with the defendant, namely the Indonesian KPU, was filed on December 8. Central Jakarta District Court's decision came out with case number 757/Pdt.G/2022/PN Jkt.Pst on Thursday, March 2.