DPD wants Autonomy Law amended

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The Regional Representatives Council (DPD) demanded on Thursday that Law No. 34/2004 on regional administrations be amended to allow direct elections for governors and regents.

Council deputy speaker Laode Ida said the prevailing law -- which was a revision to Law No. 22/1999 -- curtailed wider participation in local elections as it disallowed independent candidates.

"Our proposed amendment will focus on, among other things, the stipulation that only a political party or coalition of parties can nominate candidates in local elections," he told a discussion here.

The council, according to Laode, would soon meet with officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs to discuss the issue.

The government is preparing for the election of hundreds of regents and governors in mid-2005.

Article 59 of the law stipulates that independent candidates cannot run for the position of head of regional governments, unless he or she is nominated by a political party or a coalition of parties with at least 15 percent of the seats in the local legislature, or at least 15 percent of the popular vote.

The Regional Autonomy Law was endorsed by the House of Representatives after secretive and speedy deliberations. Its approval was made one day before the House ended its five-year term in late September.

Laode said the hasty deliberation had resulted in a poor quality law that was rife with contradictory articles.

"The all-encompassing nature of the law has blurred the substance of the law, which is supposed to regulate regional governments," he said.

He said the DPD also proposed the deliberation of a new law detailing the electoral process for local elections.

The amended Constitution states that the DPD has the authority to draw up regulations pertaining to autonomy.

Experts have said that the ban on individual candidates would only perpetuate oligarchy among political parties, which bars the way for a healthy rotation of local leaders.

Also speaking at the discussion, law expert Ibnu Tricahyo of Brawijaya University in Malang, East Java, said that prevailing Regional Autonomy Law in fact retracted the greater degree of autonomy that had been granted to local administrations.

"One of the primary considerations of the central government in revising the autonomy law is its perception that the decentralization drive had gone too far and it wants to reverse the process altogether," he said.

On the other hand, regional governments feel that the central government has not done enough to relinquish its grip on local governments, Ibnu said.

"Among the many indications showing that the central government strives to continue its hold on important financial resources in the regions," he said.

Ibnu also said the law went too far in rendering the central government control in drawing up guidelines on the drawing up of local bylaws.

"The spirit of the central government in making the new law was similar to that of the bygone New Order regime," he said.