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