Allocations for

Allocations for
political parties

From Neraca

As a citizen I am surprised to read newspaper reports,
including reports in this daily on government funds allocated for
political parties. In the general elections of 1999, I exercised
my right to vote as an obedient member of the nation. Oddly,
however, the party I chose has never carried out the mission and
vision it declared during election campaigns. Worse still, I
wonder why political parties continue to expect financial
assistance from the government.

I cannot understand why this has happened. To my knowledge,
political parties ideally should not receive any funds from the
central government or regional administration. This is because
they should be responsible to their constituents and maintain
independence.

The amount of aid required is considerable. For example, for
the fiscal year of 2002, 48 parties are allocated Rp 10 billion,
derived from Jakarta's regional budget for the same year. This
sum is based on the votes of the relevant parties, meaning that
each vote is valued at Rp 2,000, which is hard to comprehend.

Logically, the money should also belong to us as voters and
constituents, because the allotments come from the state/regional
budget, which basically originates from the people.

As ordinary citizens, we bear the burden of life resulting
from tariff and food price hikes, and we pay taxes as well as
various other levies to the city administration. Therefore, as
constituents we are also entitled to the funds allocated to our
parties, otherwise the government need not provide such aid.

INDARDI RUSLAN

Jakarta