Jakarta. The House of Representatives’ Ethics Council (MKD) has officially cleared two celebrity-legislators and suspended three others in a controversy that triggered widespread public anger over lawmakers’ privileges. Their comments and gestures, which went viral after the Aug. 15 state session, sparked mass riots in Jakarta that later spread to several other provinces in late August.

In a decision read out on Wednesday, the MKD ruled that Adies Kadir, who had briefly been removed as House deputy speaker, and Surya Utama, better known as TV personality Uya Kuya, did not violate the legislature’s code of conduct. Both will immediately return to their seats for the 2024–2029 term. Both cried as the decision was read out in the chamber.

MKD also imposed time-limited suspensions on three others, Nasdem MP Ahmad Sahroni (six months), comedian-turned-legislator Eko Patrio (four months), and actress-singer Nafa Urbach (three months). During the suspension period, they will receive no financial entitlements.

Vice chair Adang Daradjatun said the five were essentially victims of an online narrative spin, particularly the viral framing that they were “dancing to celebrate a salary raise” during the Aug. 15 annual state session.  The MKD reasoning was that the dance was a cultural expression during the state orchestra performance, not a flex about higher allowances. Sociologist Trubus Rahardiansyah testified that the act did not breach institutional decorum.

The decision comes three months after one of the most heated political moments in Indonesia. The late-August street unrest that erupted after lawmakers defended, on the record, a Rp 50 million (around US$3,000) monthly housing allowance, nearly ten times Jakarta’s average take-home pay, while insisting the public was misinformed about the size of parliamentary benefits. Four MPs saw their homes ransacked. A motorcycle taxi driver died when a police tactical vehicle plowed through a crowd outside Senayan. For a week, the country looked, again, one spark away from a legitimacy crisis.

Political scientist Burhanuddin Muhtadi says the outcome was predictable and symbolically empty. “From the beginning, parties never used the word ‘resign,’ only ‘deactivate’,” he said. “So they can re-activate them any time.” The six-month penalty for Sahroni, he argues, will not shift the public’s perception of a legislature that dodges meaningful accountability until the temperature drops.

Uya Kuya, in a YouTube interview, said he accepts the verdict and called the MKD process “professional.” “We must learn as humans,” he said.

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