Indonesia’s constitutional court on Thursday shot down a proposed change to the country’s electoral system that rights advocates had decried as an attack on democracy, ahead of a vote next year. The legal challenge stoked fears of a return to Indonesia’s autocratic past and a potential delay to February’s presidential and legislative polls, which could have allowed President Joko Widodo to extend his rule past the two-term limit.The court rejected a bid by a member of the governing Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) to move the world’s third-biggest democracy to a closed-ballot voting system that would have only allowed party leaders to choose MPs.

Constitutional court chief justice Anwar Usman said in a hearing on Thursday that he “rejects the plaintiffs’ petition in its entirety”. A ruling the other way would have been binding and could not have been immediately challenged.The closed-ballot system was used during autocratic former president Suharto’s rule and kept after his downfall in the late 1990s. Since 2008, Indonesia has operated on an open-ballot system where voters cast ballots directly for specific lawmakers.

Critics had questioned the independence of the court as chief justice Usman is Widodo’s brother-in-law. But the Indonesian leader has repeatedly denied any attempts to prolong his presidency beyond the 10-year limit.The eight other parties in parliament opposed the PDI-P-backed change before Thursday’s ruling. The petition — tabled last year by six plaintiffs including the PDI-P member — argued the open system had created a money-driven competition between candidates which included accusations of vote-buying.

Human rights experts criticised the proposal and said a ruling in favour of the change would have marked a dark day for democracy in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. “It is a continuing attack on democracy,” Usman Hamid, director of Amnesty International Indonesia, told.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP