Times Up for the Villages Minister

March 12, 2025 | 02:18 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Constitutional Court decided that the election for Regent of Serang must be rerun. After being proven that he intervened, Villages Minister Yandri Susanto should be dismissed.

IT is as if intervention by high-level officials in elections has become the new normal. In last year’s presidential election, there were indications that President Joko Widodo used civil servants to bring about the victory of Prabowo Subianto, who was running with his son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka. Now Minister for Villages and Disadvantaged Regions Development Yandri Susanto has been proven to have helped his wife during the election for Regent of Serang, Banten.

President Prabowo should dismiss Yandri from the cabinet. The intervention of one of his ministers has at the very least caused a financial loss to the country because it is the state that will have to pay the costs of the rerun election ordered by the Constitutional Court. Also, people living in the area will have to wait longer than those in other regions before they have a definitive regional leader.

Yandri’s intervention means that the state funds used in the election in the region were wasted. The organizers of the election in the region will have to allocate tens of billions of rupiah for the poll to be held on April 19 this year. These funds will be used to pay the salaries once again for the committee and monitors, as well as for the printing of ballot papers and the public information campaign.

On February 24, the Constitutional Court ruled that Yandri was proven to have assisted his wife, Ratu Rachmatu Zakiyah. The constitutional justices said that the electoral misdemeanors in the region were structured, systematic and widespread. With the help of Yandri, who had been appointed to Prabowo’s cabinet during the campaign period, Ratu Rachmatu Zakiyah, who was running with Najib Hamas, defeated their rivals, the pairing of Andika Hazrumy and Nanang Supriatna, and winning 70 percent of the vote.

At the time of the campaign, Yandri, a politician from the National Mandate Party (PAN), had been a minister for less than a month. He gathered dozens of village heads grouped under the Serang Regency branch of the Indonesian Village Administrations Association. They were asked to provide assistance to the Ratu-Najib candidate pairing. He gave each village head an allowance of Rp2 million and promised they would be able to make a minor pilgrimage to Mecca if his wife won. Yandri violated the principle of neutrality by state officials laid down in the Gubernatorial, Regency and Mayoral Elections Law.

The Constitutional Court ruling also shows that the organizers and monitors of the election did not do their jobs properly. If the Regional General Election Commission and the Elections Supervisory Agency had followed the rules, intervention by state officials could have been prevented from the outset. This calls into question the quality of these people.

Moreover, Yandri could also be charged for election offences. The Constitutional Court ruling on the rerunning of the regional heads election in Serang could be used as grounds for a report to law enforcement authorities because in its ruling on an examination of Article 118 of Law No. 1/2015 on Implementation of the Gubernatorial, Regency and Mayoral Elections Law, the Court stated that officials to the level of regional heads can be prosecuted if their actions are proved to have benefited a candidate pairing in regional elections. The punishment is a minimum of one month in jail and a maximum fine of Rp6 billion.

If he was serious when he spoke about establishing a clean government, Prabowo should impose a strict punishment on Minister Yandri. The actions of his subordinate have done further damage to public trust in the electoral process and results of general elections, one of the most important components of democratic life. Without resolute action, the people will believe that officials can intervene as they like in general elections.

Furthermore, this is not the first time Yandri abused his position for his own private interests. On his first day as a minister, Monday, October 21, 2024, he distributed invitations to the commemoration of anniversary of his mother’s death using Ministry of Villages and Disadvantaged Regions Development letterhead. Unfortunately, Prabowo only gave him a verbal admonishment, despite the lack of interests demonstrated by the minister for a serious ethical violation. Therefore, without waiting to be dismissed, he should resign from the cabinet.

Without resolute action from the President or a willingness from Yandri to step down, serious violations will be considered as nothing out of the ordinary. And this habit will only justify the sneer that Prabowo has often expressed, using a Javanese insult to belittle the concept of ethics.

Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine

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