Election bill forces factions to cooperate

Election bill forces factions to cooperate

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The fear of losing in voting on the presidential election bill is forcing factions in the House of Representatives to seek compromises.

The most contentious issue in the bill centers on the threshold -- the minimum percentage of House seats a party or coalition of parties needs in order to be allowed to nominate its own presidential candidate.

The factions agreed to postpone a meeting of the House's special committee deliberating the bill, from Monday to Thursday to allow for more lobbying to reach an agreeable threshold figure.

Monday's meeting was used to confirm that a voting mechanism would be used in a House plenary meeting scheduled for Wednesday to pass the bill.

"The plenary meeting is postponed to Oct. 28 from the initially scheduled Oct. 22, to allow for more lobbying, and to avoid going to a vote," said special committee chairman Ferry Mursyidan Baldan.

After sticking to their proposed 15 percent threshold, the Democratic Party and the National Mandate Party (PAN) eventually raised their demanded limit to 20 percent, following intense lobbying between leaders of major parties over the weekend.

The increase in the threshold closes the gap on the threshold proposed by the Golkar Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which had both reduced their initial 30 percent threshold to 25 percent.

Other major parties, including the United Development Party (PPP), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the National Awakening Party (PKB), are pushing for a 20 percent threshold, putting pressure on Golkar and the PDI-P to further lower their limits.

"We hope the one-week delay will allow us to agree on a threshold percentage of between 20 and 25 percent, and to avoid passing the bill through a vote," said Mahfudz Siddiq, chairman of the PKS faction at the House.

A vote is considered the least desirable way of passing the bill, because no faction in the House believes it can win in a vote.

In addition, if the voting mechanism was used, all the factions could be forced to choose between either a 15 percent or 30 percent threshold, thus putting them back at square one, with Golkar and the PDI-P staying at 30 percent, and the others likely to vote for 15 percent.

"We don't want to vote on the threshold because we are not sure we can win, even though Golkar and the PDI-P can unite over this. If we lose, then we have to live with a 15 percent threshold," said Rully Chairul Azwar, Golkar deputy secretary-general.

Golkar and the PDI-P have 128 and 109 House seats respectively out of the total 550.

With his only support coming from the Democratic Party, which has 57 seats in the House, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono needs to keep the threshold low to allow him to run for a second term without needing to form a coalition with other parties.

The PDI-P is pushing for a high threshold, to guarantee a maximum of only three candidates contest the presidential election. This would give PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri a much better chance of winning the election in one round.

Recent surveys suggest she could win in a single round if the election was contested by more than two candidates, but would lose in a head-to-head against Yudhoyono.

Golkar is also seeking a high threshold as it tries to boost party chairman and Vice President Jusuf Kalla's bargaining position vis-a-vis the PDI-P and Yudhoyono.

Observers say the 15 percent threshold would ensure that at least four presidential candidates contest the 2009 race, making a runoff vote highly likely, with no contender expected to win more than 50 percent of votes in the first round.

A 30 percent threshold, observers add, would allow only for two contenders.