Indonesia shelves plan to revise election law

Decision comes amid street protests in multiple cities

JAKARTA:

Indonesia's parliament shelved planned changes to electoral laws on Thursday after protesters in the capital set fires and faced down tear gas and water cannon over legislation they say would weaken opponents of the outgoing president and his successor.

The legislature, dominated by supporters of outgoing President Joko Widodo and his successor, Prabowo Subianto, was scheduled to vote to reverse changes to election laws made by the constitutional court.

The court ruling had effectively reopened a chance for a vocal government critic to run in regional elections. Parties backing Prabowo had earlier this week rallied behind a single candidate for the post of Jakarta governor, killing off chances of the president-elect's rival, Anies Baswedan, from running.

Anies at the time needed the backing from a party or a coalition of parties with at least 20% of seats in the local parliament, under rules for regional elections in place since 2016. But Tuesday's court ruling lowered the threshold to under 10%, giving Anies a chance to be nominated by the party, PDIP. The national parliament had sought to return to the previous threshold, contradicting the country's highest court in a move critics said would favour the outgoing president and his family, and the incoming government, as they consolidate power and freeze out any opposition. On Thursday, deputy parliament speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad told Reuters that deliberations would be resumed by the incoming parliament, meaning there would be no change for this year's regional elections, scheduled for November.