Public Sanctions Await if House Performance Doesn't Improve

Kompas/Heru Sri Kumoro

The atmosphere of the DPR Plenary Meeting at the Parliament Building Complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Thursday (19/8/2021). Meetings are held online and offline.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS—The public has again rated the performance of the House of Representatives (DPR) as “poor”. The lawmakers’ performance is considered unequal to their monthly incomes. If the House and political parties do not give serious attention to the matter, public confidence in the House will continue to decline. Political parties with representatives in the legislature could also face public sanctions.

The results of the Kompas Research and Development (R&D) survey on 5-8 Oct. show that 60.1 percent of respondents believe that the income of lawmakers is too high in view of their poor performance. This public perception was obtained from phone interviews of 509 respondents aged 17 years and above from all 34 provinces.

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According to data from the Indonesian Budget Center (IBC), the monthly net income per legislator is Rp 57.8 million. This does not include allowances, such as for official travel. IBC executive director Roy Salam noted on Sunday (10/24/2021) that each legislator could receive an income reaching hundreds of millions of rupiah per month.

Public assessment of lawmakers’ performance was “in line” with the House’s image, which has always been at the bottom of the list of state institutions in recent surveys. The results of the October 2021Kompas R&D survey, for example, showed that the House ranked the lowest among the 10 institutions surveyed in terms of public image.

In addition, the legislature lacked achievements, while corruption cases continued to ensnare House members.

The director of the University of Indonesia Center for Political Studies, Aditya Perdana, said that the poor public perception of House performance was due to the fact that the people’s aspirations had not been “absorbed well”. In addition, the legislature lacked achievements, while corruption cases continued to ensnare House members.

Kompas/Heru Sri Kumoro

Council members talk before the start of the DPR Plenary Meeting at the Parliament Building Complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Tuesday (23/3/2021).

The absence of significant changes made by the House has maintained the public perception of the House as bad. If this condition continued, public confidence would continue to decline. In fact, it was not impossible that the public would not vote for politicians and political parties currently in the House in the upcoming elections.

“So political parties and politicians should be careful. Public assessment must be used as a lesson to make improvements," said Aditya.

Lucius Karus, a researcher at Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi), said that since the reform movement, the House performance was the worst in the 2019-2024 period. For example, in terms of legislation, lawmakers had passed just five out of a total of 74 priority bills in the past two years. Urgent bills that needed passing, such as the Personal Data Protection Bill, had been neglected.

The IBC’s Roy Salam emphasized the importance of political parties building a measurable system for assessing their cadres in the House. This way, political parties could impose sanctions on members who did not perform well.

House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, who hails from the Gerindra Party, promised that the public assessment would be used for introspection. "Actually, we have also been introspective and are determined that, after the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down, we will boost the House’s performance," he said.

On each visit, lawmakers always helped people who were having difficulties dealing with the pandemic, such as by providing basic material assistance and masks.

He claimed that the House had tried to perform well amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Legislators, for example, still visited their constituency despite the threat of contracting Covid-19. On each visit, lawmakers always helped people who were having difficulties dealing with the pandemic, such as by providing basic material assistance and masks.

Kompas/Heru Sri Kumoro

Members of the DPR talk before the start of the DPR Plenary Meeting at the Parliament Building Complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Tuesday (23/3/2021).

All these efforts had consequences on House members, he said, such as soaring expenses. "So what [the House members] receive is not income, but funds to finance activities for their constituents," said Dasco. (SYA/BOW/DEA/APA)

(This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswoko).