Street vendors peddling their sales on Aug 22, 2024, amid demonstrations to reject the ratification of the Revised Regional Election Law in front of the House of Representatives Building in Jakarta. - Jakarta Post/ANN
JAKARTA: While thousands of people staged demonstrations at several strategic points in Jakarta on Thursday (Aug 22), app-based ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers and street vendors continued their business by exercising some caution to avoid potential violence.
Fatah, a street vendor selling snacks and beverages like hot coffee with his bicycle, ran his businesses like any other day in front of the Sudirman railway station in Central Jakarta, some five kilometres away from a demonstration at the House of Representatives (parliament) building.
The 30-year-old said he was careful enough not to approach the protest sites after learning from his experience in the 2019 election protest in front of the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) office, also in Central Jakarta, when his goods were damaged during the chaos.
"I prefer to stay here. If I go to the protest location, I will get stuck there, and it will be difficult to get out because the roads are crowded," said the starling vendor, a reference to ‘Starbucks keliling’ or a play on the name of the famous American coffeehouse chain and keliling, which means mobile.
Drivers of online ojek (motorcycle taxis) observing a mass demonstration on Aug 22, 2024, in front of the House of Representatives building, from a flyover located some 200m away. - Jakarta Post/ANN
Meanwhile, ojol (online ojek) driver Rahmat Subatin, 53, who cheerfully told The Jakarta Post to call him Jambrong, said the traffic was fine as he avoided the protest locations.
He assumed that people had been informed about the rally sites and tried to avoid the crowd.
"Since early morning, I departed from Cawang [in East Jakarta], and so far, orders to pick up passengers have been coming as usual," he said.
As of Thursday afternoon, Rahmat had transported eight passengers to various public transportation hubs, including the Sudirman station.
Another ojol driver, 55-year-old Edo, who usually waits for passengers at Stasiun Palmerah, which is located next to the House building, said the rally did not really affect his earnings. He avoided the crowded roads and moved westward to Binus University in Kemanggisan to take passengers.
Protesters blocking access to the House of Representatives building in Jakarta on Aug 22, 2024. - AFP
Hundreds of demonstrators staged separate rallies in front of the House building, the Constitutional Court Office and the Merdeka Palace, all in Central Jakarta, to demand a halt to the passing of the revised Regional Elections Law that would have reversed previous rulings by the Constitutional Court.
On Tuesday, the court revoked a minimum threshold requirement to nominate candidates in regional elections and kept the minimum age limit of 30 years for candidates.
The ruling effectively blocked the candidacy of the president's 29-year-old son from entering the race for deputy governor in Central Java and will allow former Jakarta governor and former presidential candidate Anies Baswedan, the current favourite, to run in Jakarta.
But within 24 hours the parliament had drafted an emergency revision to annul the changes. All parties except Jokowi’s former political vehicle, the Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), have agreed to the revision of the law. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
