DPR starts debate on political bills

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives began on Friday the reading of three political bills -- much-awaited because they will govern how next year's first post-Soeharto general election will be conducted.

Minister of Home Affairs Syarwan Hamid introduced the bills in a plenary session led by Deputy House Speaker Hari Sabarno of the Armed Forces faction.

Hari said a special committee of 87 legislators had been assigned to deliberate the bills together with the government.

Syarwan hoped the deliberations would be completed before the end of December. If the legislature endorsed the bills, "the government believes the 1999 election will take the nation into a new era of Indonesian democracy

"God willing, it (the upcoming election) will bring about a new, legitimate and fully acceptable government," Syarwan said.

The drafts of the new political laws are on elections (74 articles), political parties (19 articles), and the structure and function of the House and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and the regional legislatures (DPRD) (50 articles).

Unlike the present law on political parties which allows only three parties to contest elections, the proposed new law would adhere to multiparty precepts, Syarwan said.

Every citizen aged over 21 can set up a political party of their own and those aged above 17 -- or less if married -- can become party members. But all the parties must name the state ideology Pancasila as their organizational canon.

"However, parties are allowed to have their unique characteristics which are shown and implemented through concrete party programs," Syarwan said.

The bill on political parties also stipulates that members of the civil servants corps and the Armed Forces are now allowed to become political party members or executives.

To curb the possibility of "money politics", political parties' financing affairs would also be regulated under the new law, Syarwan said.

He said the bill sought to regulate that a party was allowed only to receive donations of up to Rp 5 million (US$454) a year from any individual and Rp 50 million annually from corporate bodies.

The bill says a party should register every donation it obtains and have it audited by a public accountant. Every party member donation worth more than Rp 100,000 must be registered along with the donor's name, address, profession and the donor's bosses, the bill regulates.

All parties must report once every four months (including 10 days before elections and 30 days after) an audited finance report to the local Electoral Committee, once these bodies have been established.

Foreign donations to parties are banned under the proposed new law.

On qualifications to contest the elections, the existing political parties -- close to 100 to date -- will be regulated in the proposed law on the general election.

The second bill says a political party needs to have 13 provincial branches and that it must have subbranches in at least half of the regencies in any province.

If a party fails to meet the above requirements, it must have at least one million signatures from its prospective constituents, complete with their names and addresses and copies of their identification cards.

When asked, Syarwan denied on Friday the accusation that such a regulation was made to benefit the currently dominant Golkar political grouping.

He reiterated the government's commitment to have just and fair elections in May or June next year.

On the proposed new law on the MPR/DPR/DPRD structure and function, members of the MPR will number 700 -- comprising the directly elected 495 DPR members, 55 appointed Armed Forces members, 81 indirectly elected regional representatives (three from each of the 27 provinces) and 69 representatives of religious, racial and occupational groups.

The present MPR members number 1,000, including the 75 Armed Forces legislators. (aan)