Golkar women demand party comply with quota pledge

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

About a dozen women Golkar Party members demanded on Friday that their party keep its promise to allocate a 30 percent quota for women to be listed as its legislative candidates.

"Our observations indicate that not all of the candidate lists being drafted by the party's regional chapters fulfill the quota," said head of Golkar's women's development department Juniwati M. Sofwan. She also demanded transparency in the evaluation process of the candidates.

Juniwati was speaking after the group's internal meeting at the party's headquarters in Slipi, West Jakarta on Friday. They were drafting a statement on the above demands, to be presented to Golkar leader Akbar Tandjung on Saturday.

The meeting was also attended by head of Golkar's Women's Empowerment Group (KPPG) Sri Rejeki Soemaryoto and several female legislative candidates, including actress Nurul Arifin. Nurul refused to comment on her candidacy status.

Juniwati confirmed that the position of "several" women candidates had dropped on the lists drafted by regional chapters, but declined to give details.

Candidates are dependent on being among the "top numbers" on their party's list of candidates, which could help them get elected if they failed to gain the minimum number of votes in their given areas, which could reach hundreds of thousands.

Apart from issue of qualification, analysts and women politicians have pointed to illiteracy among women voters and cultural factors as among the constraints to get women elected.

Ahead of the passing of the laws on the elections and political parties, women activists had thus demanded a requirement that parties allocate a 30 percent quota for women candidates for the legislative bodies at the national, provincial, regency and township level. However the laws only encourage such affirmative action.

The pressure however led a number of parties, including Golkar, to declare their commitment to have 30 percent of women legislative candidates on their lists.

"Golkar must remember that it was one of the initiators of the idea that the quota be included in the general election law, and had even made a commitment to it by including it in this year's resolution at the party leadership meeting," Juniwati said.

Golkar Party's legislative candidates selection team comprises of its chairman, its secretary-general, and chairpersons of its regional chapters.

The selection team will start finalizing the candidate list on Dec. 15, and submit the list to the General Elections Commission by the Dec. 22 deadline.

Meanwhile activists of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) lambasted the laws encouraging affirmative action as "lip service". "The quota issue is just being used as a selling point for parties," said Francisia Seda.

"After the next elections we must amend the laws to make the quota a requirement for political parties," she added. "How can women compete if they are not given the opportunity and access?"

Her colleague Ani Soetjipto said the practice of reducing women candidates' chances to get elected could be expected from other major parties. As they are currently not solid, she said, the issue of a women's quota would be among the easiest to be compromised in political bargaining within parties.

Ani added that the candidates' dependency on the power of political parties' leadership to determine candidates would not occur in an "open proportional" system where candidates would simply compete against each other for the highest votes.