Election bill will limit parties to less than 10, analysts say
Election bill will limit parties to less than 10, analysts say
Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Analysts predict that less than 10 political parties will be
eligible to contest the 2004 general election should the proposed
bill on general elections be enacted.
They include the six parties that obtained 2 percent of the
seats in the 500-strong House of Representatives in the 1999
elections, political observers told The Jakarta Post on separate
occasions.
Nazaruddin Syamsuddin, an academic from the University of
Indonesia who chairs the General Elections Commission (KPU), said
the stringent requirements in the bill would effectively filter
out most of the 160-odd political parties registered so far with
the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.
Ramlan Surbakti of Surabaya's Airlangga University, who is
also a KPU member, said 10 parties was not an ideal number, but
it would not be more than that.
Based on the experience of past elections since 1955, he said,
the 10 parties would naturally be polarized into Islamic and
nationalist groupings.
"The polarized parties will also be dichotomized respectively
into traditionalist and modernist groupings," Ramlan said.
The bill stipulates that a party must have branches in at
least two-thirds of the country's 30 provinces, and in two-thirds
of the number of regencies or cities in one province.
The bill, recently submitted to the House of Representatives,
also requires election participants to have at least 1,000
members in each of its branches.
Politicians and analysts are divided over the stringent
requirements.
Those against the bill say only major parties will benefit
from it, while those in support of it say the move is realistic.
Ramlan demonstrated his support for the bill when he said that
the establishment of any political party had to obtain "basic
support" from people across the country.
"This will require politicians to have capital to establish a
party," he added.
The prerequisite has been set according to the political
system of "moderate pluralism", he said, which was in line with
the country's heterogeneous conditions.
Hadar Gumai, deputy executive director of the Center for
Electoral Reform (Cetro), said the tight criteria for parties
contesting elections was needed to prevent politicians from
making "experimental maneuvers" in engaging in practical
politics.
Ikrar Nusa Bhakti and Satya Arinanto said the new requirements
were too stringent for minor parties.
They said the existing electoral threshold system should be
tightened instead of requiring them to establish branches in two-
thirds of the 30 provinces.
"The bill gives small parties no chance to take part in
elections and benefits only the big parties," Ikrar said.
Under the prevailing political law, only parties with at least
2 percent of the seats in the House are allowed to contest the
2004 elections.
Legislator Amanullah Abdur Rohim of the National Awakening
Party (PKB), the fourth largest faction in the House, called for
a review of the requirements, arguing it was "undemocratic and
unfair" to small parties.
"Not only will it block minor parties, but also kill them," he
said.
Arnold Nicolas Radjawane of the Love the Nation Democratic
Party (PDKB) also dismissed the new perquisite as undemocratic,
saying that any party, no matter how small, has the right to
contest the elections.
"Even if it gets only one seat in the House, its existence
should be accommodated. That's democracy," he said.
According to Amanullah and Radjawane, it would be fair to
require each party to have branches in only half of the 30
provinces.