800 legislative candidates may be disqualified from election

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After conducting a second verification, the General Elections Commission (KPU) announced on Tuesday that between 5 and 10 percent of some 8,000 legislative nominees were not eligible for the April polls.

KPU member Anas Urbaningrum, who chairs the legislative screening, said most of the failed candidates were not registered as party members, failed to submit wealth reports or had not relinquished their status as state employees.

But Anas confirmed the KPU did find any candidates who submitted fake school certificates as happened in provincial and regental levels.

He said KPU would allow candidates who failed to submit photographs, saying a photograph was not a substantial to bar them from running.

Leaders of political parties will announce on Wednesday evening candidates who passed the second screening.

KPU will publicly announce the final list of eligible legislative candidates on Thursday.

Anas said there was one party that had more than 100 candidates disqualified.

KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti said the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) was the only one that had all candidates qualified, but a source said there was another party which also recorded a 100 percent record.

According to initial data collected from political parties, there were 8,871 legislative hopefuls registered with KPU, but data issued by the KPU media center revealed the number stood at 8,259 as of Dec. 29, 2003.

The legislative election is on April 5, with the direct presidential election first round on July 5, and a possible second run-off on Sept. 20.

Earlier in the day, KPU member Mulyana W. Kusumah said the commission would take over the role to screen legislative and regional representative (DPD) candidates representing West Irian Jaya from the local KPUD which refused to do so.

"But we'll only conduct administrative verification on those people. We have no time to carry out full factual verifications as on Feb. 1, their data should have been put into the ballot paper along with the other candidates," he said.

Based on KPU's latest data, West Irian Jaya had nine DPD nominees and 492 legislative candidates from six political parties.

On Jan. 19, Papua KPUD sent a letter to KPU, saying it would not process the legislative hopefuls from West Irian Jaya due to its busy schedule.

"Therefore, any activities conducted by West Irian Jaya KPUD secretariat is not our responsibility," Papua KPU chairman Ferry Kareth said in a letter.

He said KPU had not yet sent a letter that instructed Papua KPUD to screen the West Irian Jaya candidates.

Separately, Papua special autonomy lawyer team led by Bambang Widjojanto, representing Papua Provincial Legislative Council chairman John Ibo, sent a second warning to KPU to annul the latter's decision on the establishment of West Irian Jaya electoral districts.

Bambang also said that his team also objected to the seat allocation for the West Irian Jaya Provincial Legislative Council and Regencies Legislative Council.

"Under KPU Instruction No. 672/2003, KPU allots 44 seats to West Irian Jaya Provincial Legislative Council, while the province's population is only 567,894 people. This violates Law No. 12/2003 on General Elections, which stipulates a province with a population of less than 1 million should be allotted 35 seats for the provincial legislative council," he said.