Our political stability looks good owing to the successful political consolidation that has made the Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin administration run more smoothlyJakarta (ANTARA) - A senior legislator has lauded the performance of the Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin leadership in its first year and its success in ensuring Indonesia's political stability despite an economic downturn amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our political stability looks good owing to the successful political consolidation that has made the Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin administration run more smoothly,” Achmad Baidowi, secretary of the United Development Party (PPP) faction at the House of Representatives (DPR), said here on Tuesday.
Jokowi and Ma'ruf Amin had defeated the rival pairing of Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno in last year's presidential elections, and were officially sworn in as the elected president and vice president on October 20, 2019.
While political consolidation has been successfully achieved, upholding the supremacy of the law in Indonesia has still run into serious challenges, Baidowi remarked.
He cited the Djoko Tjandra graft case as an example of how the supremacy of law had been damaged by the involvement of certain individuals within the attorney office and police.
In the economic sector, like many other countries, Indonesia has been challenged by the tremendous impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but, it is important to observe how the government is able to recover the economy, which contracted 5.32 percent in the second quarter of this year, the legislator remarked.
On Tuesday, several hundred students from different universities in Jakarta again staged a rally against the job creation law, popularly known as the omnibus law, which was enacted by the DPR on October 5, 2020.
Since the law’s enactment, protests have broken out in Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Semarang, Makassar, and several other cities.
The law has been rejected by not just workers and trade unions, but has also triggered protests from thousands of university students and junior high school students.
Amid the mass protests, President Jokowi has defended the law saying that he believes it would improve the lives of workers and their families.
During an online press conference on October 9, 2020, he said the government believes that through this law, millions of workers will improve their lives and the livelihoods of their families.
He then explained the reasons for drafting the law, including the need for creating a large number of jobs for the Indonesian people. Every year, 2.9 million youngsters join Indonesia's working age population, and are ready to enter the labor market, he reasoned.
The need for jobs is also increasing because, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have terminated the employment (PHK) of workers, he added. (INE)
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Translator: Imam B, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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