“They want to stay in power longer”

The National Information Institute (NII) recently announced that the presidential commission on Saturday had a fruitful talk with political parties about the amendment of the Voting Act. Most of the political parties, however, have a different opinion. All of the political parties cooperated and had a constructive attitude except for the ruling party, the National Democratic Party (NDP). According to Paul Somohardjo, chairman of the PL Party, the NDP gave a short statement aimed at convincing the other political parties to ban the formation of political blocs prior to the elections. “The NDP tried to get us on board because it needs a two third majority in order to amend the Voting Act to its advantage. If it had the two third majority, it would not have asked us anything but it would have done it in Parliament. We did not deem it a fruitful talk.” Somohardjo denied the NII’s claim that only the Pertjajah Luhur (PL) representatives had left the meeting early. “All of the parties gave a presentation regarding their point of view on the Voting Act. The PL and the Party for Democracy and Development (PDO) were scheduled to give a presentation after the NDP. After they had read a statement aloud which was not convincing, we expressed our discontent. After that the PL and the PDO left the meeting. We had prepared ourselves to give a presentation but then the NDP read aloud a short statement”, said MP Somohardjo. It is not clear what kind of effect the discontent of the PL and the PDO will have on the next steps of the presidential commission that is chaired by ex President Jules Wijdenbosch. The commission aims at presenting a final recommendation to the government before the end of the first quarter of 2018. “Let it be clear: the PL is not afraid to participate in the elections on its own. We are not a small party but we deem it unacceptable how the NDP tried to trick us into cooperating with the amendment of the Voting Act so that it can stay longer in power.”