Big parties support plan to fire dissenting legislators
Big parties support plan to fire dissenting legislators
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The country's three most popular political parties have thrown
their weight behind plans to revive a mechanism to fire
dissenting legislative members, but differ on other issues.
Executives of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI
Perjuangan), Golkar Party and National Development Party (PPP)
factions in the House of Representatives said on Friday that
reinstating the old mechanism would help parties discipline
members, rather than allow the parties to practice
authoritarianism.
"A legislator can only be fired after the case is heard at the
local chapter of the party concerned," said Yahya Zaini, a Golkar
Party member and chairman of the House special commission
deliberating the political party bill.
Echoing Yahya were Thaher Saimima of the PPP faction and
Sukowaluyo Mintohardjo of the PDI Perjuangan faction, both deputy
chairs of the commission.
They said a party had the authority to select its members for
legislative seats, despite an open-list proportional system that
might be adopted to elect House legislators.
The issue also highlights the deliberation of the election
bill by another commission.
On Thursday evening, Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno
held a hearing with the commission deliberating the political
party bill.
The three biggest factions in the House underlined four
prominent points that needed prolonged discussion: Article 2 on
minimum requirements for those wishing to establish a new
political party; article 4 on the party's ideology and
principles; article 7 paragraph f on the firing procedures and
article 20 on supervision of political parties.
Both Thaher and Sukowaluyo agreed to impose strict
requirements on people wishing to establish new parties, saying
too many parties was not suitable for democracy building in the
country.
Golkar rejected the clause and instead proposed that a 3
percent electoral threshold be imposed to restrict the number of
parties eligible to contest the next election.
"I guess we should allow natural selection to work," Yahya
said.
The current Law on Political Party No. 2/1999 has paved the
way for people to establish political parties. More than 200
parties have registered with the Ministry of Justice and Human
Rights, raising suspicions they are only trying to obtain
government funds.
In the 1999 general election, the government provided
subsidies for all parties contesting the general election, the
amount ranging from Rp 500 million (US$56,818) to Rp 1 billion.
On supervision of parties, both Golkar and PPP rejected the
government's role, saying "the government itself is made up of
the country's political parties."
"I suggest that the Supreme Court or the Constitutional Court
conduct the supervisory job," Yahya said.
PDI Perjuangan agreed on the proposal, but limited the roles
only to certain areas, including the registration process of
parties.