Thousands in Indonesia Protest Proposed Election Law Changes

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at backlash over Indonesia’s proposed electoral changes, the last day of the U.S. Democratic National Convention, and a major railway strike across Canada.

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Parliament Caves to Protests

Thousands of Indonesians attempted to storm the country’s parliament building in the capital of Jakarta on Thursday during protests against proposed changes to the country’s election laws. Police fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters, some of whom carried a mock guillotine featuring the face of outgoing President Joko Widodo. Similar demonstrations erupted across other major cities, including Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Makassar.

Indonesian lawmakers were meeting in an emergency session to ratify legislation to overturn one ruling that the country’s Constitutional Court made earlier this week and to amend a second. If passed, the legislation would have expanded the political influence of Widodo and his successor, Prabowo Subianto, by letting Widodo’s son run for a regional deputy governor position and potentially paving the way for allies of Widodo and Prabowo to contest elections in Central Java and Jakarta virtually unopposed. Protesters called on the parliamentarians to respect the two court rulings.

The first ruling, on Tuesday, dismissed a case challenging age limits on people under 30 seeking regional governorships. Parliament wished to change the limits, allowing Widodo’s youngest son, 29-year-old Kaesang Pangarep, to run for office in Central Java.

Kaesang would not be the only member of Widodo’s family in power were he to win a seat come November. Widodo’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, will be sworn in as vice president on Oct. 20 alongside Prabowo. Gibran was only allowed to run for vice president due to the Constitutional Court ruling last October that people under age 40 could run for the top offices if they had previously been elected to a regional post.

Critics of Widodo’s administration denounced that ruling, arguing that then-Chief Justice Anwar Usman should not have participated in the case because he is Widodo’s brother-in-law. Anwar was later dismissed over the controversy.

Also on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of abolishing a threshold rule that required political parties and coalitions to hold 20 percent of legislative seats or 25 percent of the popular vote in order to nominate candidates for regional heads, the highest such threshold in the world. The court issued a new stipulation saying parties and coalitions need just 7.5 percent of the popular vote for provinces with 6 million to 12 million eligible voters and only 6 percent of the popular vote for provinces with more than 12 million eligible voters.

Activists hailed the ruling as a win for democracy, arguing that the decision hinders the Onward Indonesia Coalition’s efforts to create a broad coalition to prevent opposition candidate Anies Baswedan from running for the coveted governorship of Jakarta. But lawmakers aimed to amend the ruling on Thursday to once again raise the nomination threshold.

Legal experts and political analysts have described these power struggles as bordering on a constitutional crisis for the world’s third-largest democracy and fourth most populous country. Widodo has downplayed these amendments, though, calling them just part of government “checks and balances.”

Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, the deputy speaker of Indonesia’s House of Representatives, ultimately postponed Thursday’s emergency plenary session over the unrest, first citing the body’s failure to meet a quorum before caving to protesters’ demands. The vote won’t be held until parliament’s next sitting period, meaning that any possible changes to the court’s decisions would not apply to Widodo’s outgoing administration or regional elections slated for November.

Today’s Most Read

What We’re Following

Wrapping up the DNC. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will take the stage at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago late Thursday to deliver a speech formally accepting the party’s presidential nomination. If she wins in November, she will become the United States’ first woman and first South Asian elected president. Harris’s speech, which some analysts are calling the most important of her career thus far, will likely address abortion rights, high costs of living, her heritage, and the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency.

Harris has raised a record $500 million in the one month since launching her campaign. Polling sites now estimate that she has narrowed the vote or overtaken Trump in key battleground states. Meanwhile, third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for his conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine platform, suggested that he will end his campaign on Friday to endorse Trump.

This week’s four-day DNC event hosted the Democratic Party’s top leaders and influencers, including former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, activists Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Railroad strike. Canada’s two largest railway companies shut down on Thursday after contract talks with a labor union failed to come to an agreement. More than 9,000 workers were locked out at midnight, bringing major supply chains to a halt and dealing a significant blow to Ottawa’s economy.

Half of all Canadian exports rely on railroads for transportation. Moody’s Ratings estimates that Canada will lose around $250 million for each day of the shutdown, or roughly 4 percent of the country’s GDP. That could severely hurt Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s popularity; Trudeau’s Liberal Party is dependent on the New Democratic Party—which is partly founded on organized labor—to remain in power.

The Canadian National rail network extends into the United States, while Canadian Pacific Kansas City reaches as far south as Mexico. Both companies remain in operation outside of Canada because foreign workers are covered by different labor unions. Danish shipping company Maersk announced on Thursday that it is considering contingency plans to continue trade with Ottawa.

Mpox spreads. Thailand confirmed its first case of the deadly mpox strain Clade 1b on Thursday, making it the first Asian nation and the second country outside of Africa to report having it. Local health authorities said a European man carrying the disease arrived in Bangkok last Wednesday from an unnamed African country and began displaying symptoms the next day. Last week, Sweden also reported a case of the lethal strain.

Clade 1b has a death rate of 3 percent, much higher than the 0.2 percent rate seen in the 2022 outbreak. Epidemiologists believe this strain is mainly passed through heterosexual sex as well as skin-to-skin contact. Mpox cases were originally concentrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the virus’s rapid spread forced the World Health Organization to declare the mpox outbreak a public health emergency on Aug. 14. In one week since last Tuesday, Congo reported more than 1,000 new mpox cases.

Odds and Ends

The secret to a long life is simpler than you think, according to Maria Branyas Morera, previously the world’s oldest person. The wise Spaniard died at age 117 on Tuesday, having lived through two pandemics, two world wars, and a host of discoveries and revolutions. In an interview with Guinness World Records before her death, Branyas said she believed her longevity came from “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people.”

The post Thousands in Indonesia Protest Proposed Election Law Changes appeared first on Foreign Policy.