One House, Two Gavels

The two coalitions in the House of Representatives (DPR) are still squabbling over control of parliamentary committees. The Red-White Coalition, which backed failed presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto in the July election, used its strong majority in House to seize control of the leadership of every one of its internal bodies. In response, the Great Indonesia Coalition, which backs President Joko Widodo, named a shadow leadership.

The coalitions were fighting over 63 chair and deputy chair positions on the various House commissions and internal bodies. After the Red-White camp took control of the House speaker and deputy speaker positions a few weeks ago, the pro-Joko camp offered two proposals for sharing seats: one along party lines, the other along coalition lines, according to Arif Wibowo, a legislator from Joko's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).