Support grows for changes to legislative election law

JakartaPost- September 01, 2008

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post

Support is growing for the House of Representatives to revise the 2008 legislative election law to allow political parties to apply an open system in determining their legislative candidates.

Experts and representatives of most factions in the House said Sunday the amendment of Law No. 10/2008 was essential to prevent potential conflicts and legal suits within parties, which could threaten the credibility of the 2009 elections.

The law recommends only the numerical order mechanism instead of an open system requiring parties to determine their representatives in the House based on the votes each wins in his or her electoral district.

Support for the revision has come from the Golkar Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Crescent Star Party (PBB) and the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS). The four factions in the House initiated the amendment.

The Democratic Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), along with several new parties including the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) led by former armed forces chief Wiranto, also expressed their support for the proposed change to the election law.

"In principle, we are glad we can shift to the open system because we are ready to apply the method," PKS faction chairman Mahfudz Siddiq told The Jakarta Post.

To attract voters and maintain internal unity, some parties have decided to scrap the numerical order mechanism and adopt the open system.

A series of defeats in regional elections and threats of disunity have forced Golkar, which had steadfastly supported the numerical order system, to change its position and scrap its control of the distribution of its legislative seats in the 2009 poll.

The numerical order system allows the parties' central boards to appoint loyalists to legislative bodies.

In previous elections, loyalists to party leaders commonly topped the lists of candidates and contested the election in the party's strongholds to ensure they would secure legislative seats.

Some prominent Golkar members, such as Yudhi Chrisnandi and Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, threatened to withdraw their candidacy if they were placed low on the list.

To convince their candidates of their seriousness in implementing the open system, Golkar and PAN have required all their candidates to sign resignation letters in advance.

If a No. 1 candidate, for instance, failed to get enough votes and was defeated by a lower-ranking candidate, then the party would send his or her resignation letter to the General Elections Commission (KPU) together with the name of the replacement candidate.

Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) executive director Hadar N. Gumay warned that failure to amend the law could trigger internal conflicts within parties and lawsuits against the KPU.

This problem threatened to delay the election, he added.

"If a candidate placed higher on the list refused to resign, and stick to the law, then he or she can sue the party or the KPU. All lawsuits can bog down the election process," he said.

Hadar said Cetro had submitted a draft bill to revise the law, which did not drop the numerical order system but rather gave the open system a legal basis.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the second largest faction in the House, criticized the parties that supported the amendment as "inconsistent".

"They were the parties that wanted the numerical order system. But now they want to change the law only because they can't handle threats of disunity within their parties," PDI-P lawmaker Ganjar Pranowo said.