House of Representative

It is as if nothing has happened since the 2014 legislative election.

Despite a series of graft cases implicating various political parties

and a meager performance in lawmaking,

, according to quick-count results:

the new composition of the House of Representatives, has not changed much.

The coattail effect, which was expected to bring more votes to the PDI-P and the Gerindra for having fielded their members as presidential candidates,

did not really happen.

The PDI-P is predicted to get around 19 to 20 percent of the vote, which is only slightly better than its showing in 2014 with 18.95 percent.

 even after having two of its top executives charged with graft,

The Golkar still gained around 12 percent of the vote.

Gerindra may have performed better in the April 17 election but it only increased its vote acquisition by 1 percent.

Islam-based parties did slightly better than expected,

and so did the mid-size nationalist parties such as the Democratic Party and the NasDem Party.

We hope the new faces in the House can improve its performance,

even though it is likely that the old faces will continue to hold leadership posts within each faction, thus undermining reform.

The incumbent legislators did an awful job in lawmaking.

59 lawmakers have been implicated in corruption.

It is therefore a requisite that the public keeps an eye on the House’s budgeting role.

The multimillion dollar e-ID graft case has shown us the level of corruption that could take place during budgeting.

However, the greatest challenge for the new House members is improving its oversight role.

We are aware that the President needs to have adequate support from the House

to carry out his programs but

there is no denying that we also need a smart and strong opposition

to perform checks and balances on the government.