2004 polls: Who benefits?

Adi Abidin and Wandy Nicodemus, Asia Foundation, Jakarta

One of the amended articles of the 1945 Constitution states that the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) shall be comprised of the House of Representatives (DPR) and Regional Representatives Council (DPD), both of which are to be elected in a general election.

In the context of the 2004 elections, the amendment is in accordance with the electoral bill submitted by the Megawati Soekarnoputri administration in May this year. This should make the job of the special committee on the electoral bill (Pansus Pemilu), which was formed last July 8, a bit easier. As we wait for the team to proceed in September, it is worthwhile to look into the bill, particularly the issue of the allocation of seats in the DPR and its consequences in the 2004 elections.

For a start, the next DPR will have 550 elected seats, compared to 462 in the current DPR. Of the 500 total seats in the DPR today, 38 of them are "free" for the military and the police. In 2004, all seats in DPR and DPD will be contested. Although there will be 88 "new" seats, the proposed system that allocates seats according to population per province will heighten the difference between Java and the "outer islands", particularly for eastern Indonesia.

The following is a simulation of seat allocation per province, in accordance with Articles 7, 8 and 9 in the electoral bill. These calculations are based on 2000 data from the Central Bureau of Statistics which reports the population figure at 203 million. To get the number of seats per province, the population of each province is divided by the total population. The resulting number is then multiplied by the total of 550 seats.

On a nationwide average, one DPR seat will represent 371,798 people, with variations ranging from 420,195 people per seat in Gorontalo to 316,810 people per seat in Bangka-Belitung.

As the proposed system is trying to strengthen the DPR, there would not be any automatic allocation of one seat per regency (kabupaten) or township as in 1999. In 2004, the heavily populated provinces in Java would gain the most DPR seats. West Java, for example, even though Banten has split from it, would gain 14 to 96 seats, with Banten itself having 22.

East Java would gain the most with an additional 25 seats from the current 68, bringing the number of representatives to 93. In all, the provinces of Java would gain 91 "new" seats, with a total of 325 seats or 59 percent of the total DPR membership.

Some provinces in Sumatra would also gain seats, but only North Sumatra would have a substantial number of additional seats, 31 in 2004 compared to the current 24. Sumatra, as a whole, would in total be represented by 115 seats, compared to the current 100.

The rest of the provinces, the so-called Eastern Indonesia Area, may likely have fewer seats. With the establishment of the North Maluku province, which would ahve two seats in 2004, the Maluku province representatives would decrease from six to three in the next election. The province with the largest decline in seats would be Papua; it would only send five people to the DPR in 2004 compared to the current 13 seats.

Such a simulation raises the interesting question of who would "benefit" in such an arrangement. Assuming that voting preference would be similar to 1999, parties with a strong base in Java -- the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and United Development Party (PPP), would certainly benefit the most in 2004.

Of 550 seats, PDI Perjuangan could get 185 (33.6 percent of total seats), for instance. The Golkar Party which received most of its seats in 1999 from eastern Indonesia (55 of 120), would lose seats from that area, although it would be compensated by additional seats from Java (53 in 2004 compared to 41 in 1999), which would bring its total to 128, a gain of eight seats from 1999. Percentage wise, however, Golkar loses by 0.8 percent of total seats to 23.4 percent.

Indeed, this is only a simulated forecast. Voting preferences for the next election could well be different from the 1999 elections, affected by among other things the strength of the attachment of a voter to a political party, how well a voter rates a party's performance in elected offices and how well parties can convince would-be voters.

Still, in the context of Java and the "outer islands", the bill incorporate provisions on the regional legislative councils (DPD), to balance the population-based DPR. Each province would have an equal number of four seats.

The outer islands would then have more seats, 96 or 75 percent, compared to Java's 24 or 25 percent. In a joint session of the DPR and DPD -- which form the new MPR -- the balance, though, would still favor Java with 349 representatives (or 52 percent), compared to the outer islands' 321 seats (or 48 percent).

Who would have a better chance of winning DPD seats? Since political parties are not allowed to field candidates and since the proposed bill allows civil servants, military and police officers to run as candidates with no requirement to retire first, such people would have the better chance.

They are the ones with the resources and the organization to gain the candidacy and to get the votes. Moreover, the bill provides them with voting rights. Their votes could not go elsewhere. This could be sort of compensation for the military and police for their "loss" of the free seats in the DPR.