Inquiry Rights Evaporate, PDIP Becomes the Spearhead – 2024-04-07 15:32:13

Council members attend the plenary meeting closing the DPR session at the Nusantara II Building (MI/Susanto)

THE DISCOURSE of submitting a right of inquiry from the DPR to investigate allegations of fraud that was launched by presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo following the voting and counting of votes for the 2024 presidential election seems to have evaporated as time goes by. In fact, this issue was not mentioned at all at the closing of the 2023-2024 IV Session Period on Thursday (4/4).

Senior researcher at the Center for Political Research at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Lili Romli believes that the silence of a number of political party factions in the DPR which have so far supported the right to inquiry is because they are still waiting for steps from the PDI Perjuangan. For Lili, whether or not this idea is realized really depends on the party chaired by Megawati Soekarnoputri.

“The ball (the right to inquiry) is indeed in the PDIP. As is known, the discourse on the right to inquiry was initiated by Pak Ganjar, who is actually a cadre from the PDIP, but his party did not move,” said Lili to Media Indonesia, Friday (5/4).

After yesterday’s plenary meeting, the Chair of the DPR RI and Chair of the PDI-P DPP, Puan Maharani, was reluctant to respond further regarding the absence of a request for a right of inquiry to the legislative leadership. He also admitted that there were no instructions from the faction regarding the right to inquiry.

Therefore, Lili is of the opinion that the discourse on the right to inquiry that has been circulating so far might be just a bluff without any concrete steps. This is unfortunate considering that there is quite a lot of public support for the DPR to roll out the right to inquiry.

According to Lili, the failure of efforts to realize the right to inquiry was caused by solidity factors both internally and between political parties. He said that not all internal party members supported this discourse.

“The political parties also don’t seem to be solid because they are in a dilemma considering that most of the parties are still part of Jokowi’s government coalition. If they carry out the right to inquiry, they will be required to leave the cabinet,” said Lili. (Tri/Z-7)