House Commission II Admits It Has Not Received Leadership's Approval to Deliberate Election Bill

The House of Representatives’ (DPR) Commission II has admitted it has not yet received the green light from the DPR leadership to officially begin deliberating revisions to Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning Elections. Commission II Chairman Rifqinizamy Karsayuda revealed that he had directly asked the DPR leadership during a closed meeting in January 2026 when the bill could formally start being discussed with the formation of a working committee (Panja). However, Rifqi said the DPR leadership asked the commission to wait. He did not specify which leader he spoke to. The DPR leadership currently consists of five members: Chairwoman Puan Maharani from PDIP, and Deputy Chairmen Sufmi Dasco Ahmad (Gerindra), Saan Mustopa (NasDem), Cucun Ahmad Syamsurijal (PKB), and Sari Yuliati (Golkar). “I asked the DPR leadership, would it be appropriate for the Panja to be formed now or should we wait for the political and legislative momentum, which we must obey according to the rules and mechanisms of the DPR?” Rifqi said during a discussion at the UIN Jakarta campus on Tuesday. “The answer was ‘wait’. When I asked when, the answer was ‘wait’,” added the NasDem politician. As an alternative, Rifqi then took the initiative for his commission to begin absorbing aspirations for the Election Bill from experts and practitioners. However, he noted that the meetings held over a fortnight were outside the formal procedure for deliberating a bill, as official discussions should begin with the formation of a Panja before involving the wider public. “We conducted this every two weeks in Commission II of the DPR RI to fulfil meaningful participation as mandated by various Constitutional Court rulings. We took the liberty of compiling a list of problem inventories,” he said. According to Rifqi, the results of these meetings produced a list of problem inventories (DIM) totalling 28 points. Besides expert input, he said the DIM was also derived from 22 Constitutional Court rulings related to the Election Law, both those fully and partially accepted. “These 28 DIMs have been discussed in Commission II, although the discussions were not made open in order to respect political decorum. I must convey this,” he stated. Rifqi said the DIM has now been submitted to faction representatives in Commission II to be forwarded to their respective party chairpersons. He noted that for politicians, the green light or order from the chairperson is the decisive factor in drafting legislation. Meanwhile, in the deliberation of the Election Bill, besides not yet receiving the green light from the DPR leadership, there has also been no direct instruction from the chairpersons to begin discussions. “For us politicians, if there is no green light from our chairperson, we do not move. If we look at it from the aspect of political party institutionalisation, my words are indeed not ideal. But I have to say it as it is,” he said. According to Rifqi, the approval or order to deliberate the Election Bill is not only absent from his own party, NasDem, but also from the chairpersons of other parties. However, some parties have begun internal reviews of the Election Bill, while others have not moved at all. “Several political parties have started conducting studies on the revision of the election law, but there are also political parties that have not and are reluctant to conduct studies on this,” he said.