Prosperous Justice Party After graduating from the
University of Indonesia, Hamzah founded the KAMMI (
Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa Muslim Indonesia/Indonesian Muslim University Students' Action Union) and became its first president in the political situation after the
fall of Suharto. Later, he joined the
Prosperous Justice Party after briefly working as an expert staff for the
People's Consultative Assembly.
House of Representatives First term (2004–2009) He ran in the
2004 elections as a nominee for his home district of
West Nusa Tenggara, and won a seat. In his first term, he admitted to receiving non-budgetary benefits from then-Minister of Fishery
Rokhmin Dahuri, which resulted in his being reprimanded by the body's ethical council (
Dewan Kehormatan) and was barred from holding a position until 2009.
Second term (2009–2014) In 2009, however, he successfully ran for re-election after winning 105,412 votes, the second highest in the district out of 10 elected representatives. During his second term, he caused a controversy by calling for the disbanding of the
Corruption Eradication Commission. Also in the same term, he served as a member of the body's ethical council briefly during the 2011–2012 period. he was elected as Deputy Speaker of the parliament on 2 October, during which the minority ruling coalition walked out of the parliament building due to a perceived unfairness of the majority opposition placing only their members on the body's speaker positions.
Dismissal from PKS On 11 March 2016, he was dismissed from the
Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) for making several seemingly controversial, counter-productive and improper statements (a little bit stupid). In accordance, his former party proposed for another member of the parliament
Ledia Hanifa Amaliah to replace him as Deputy Speaker. However, Hamzah is still active as Deputy Speaker as of December 2017. Following the dismissal, he sued his former party, winning up to the level of the
Supreme Court which awarded him
Rp 30 billion in damages (US$2.1 million). During the voting of the
2017 electoral law, opposition parties all walked out from the parliament's chamber. However, Hamzah decided to remain, despite his sole opposition to a section of the electoral law regulating a 20 percent presidential candidacy threshold with all other members remaining voting in favor of it.
Gelora Party He did not run for reelection in 2019. He then co-founded the
Indonesian People's Wave Party (Gelora) with a number of other former PKS politicians, and became its vice chairman. He ran as a DPR candidate from Gelora in the
2024 election, winning 55,319 votes from
West Nusa Tenggara's 1st district, but failed to win a seat. == References ==