Election commission likely to miss election schedules
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The delay in the deliberation of political bills will likely force the country's General Elections Commission (KPU) to change the schedule of the 2004 elections.
KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti said on Monday that the Commission had earlier scheduled the legislative body election in June and the presidential and vice presidential election in August.
"Based on our state guidelines, the country holds general elections every five years. It also says that the president is elected or reelected every five years. This means the tenure of our incumbent president will end in October 2004.
"But as of today, we (the KPU) have yet to make a clear time frame, including the schedule to screen political parties eligible to contest in the elections, campaign schedules for each political party, and the schedule for the presidential election," said Ramlan, calling on legislators to speed up the deliberations of political bills already submitted by the government.
Legislators endorsed in November the political party bill, but President Megawati Soekarnoputri has yet to sign it into law.
A bill on general elections is being deliberated by House members who promised to endorse it in March. Two other bills -- on the composition of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the House of Representatives (DPR), the Regional Representative Council (DPD), and the Provincial and Regional Legislative Councils (DPRD), and on the presidential and vice presidential elections -- have yet to be submitted to the House.
Ramlan said KPU has not been able to establish local election commissions up to now, as the bill on general elections has not been endorsed.
On Monday, KPU also said it needed a longer period to register voters in 2003, considering that the country did not have an adequate database on the population regarding suffrage, even though the country has already held eight general elections.
Ramli said KPU would cooperate with the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) in registering voters.
A similar complaint was voiced by another KPU member, Anas Urbaningrum, who is in charge of the KPU Working Committee on presidential and vice presidential elections.
Anas said the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights had yet to complete the verification process for the more than 230 political parties that had already registered with the ministry.
Under Article 3 of the bill on political parties, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights holds the authority to verify political parties to determine whether they meet all registration requirements.
Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno said earlier that political parties that did not meet the necessary requirements should cease to exist as political parties and instead, should change their status into foundations.
However, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights has not yet been able to verify these political parties, as president Megawati has not enacted the political party bill as law.
KPU said Monday that it needed at least nine months to determine whether or not certain political parties were eligible to contest in the general elections.