House divided on typeof PR arrangement
House divided on typeof PR arrangement
JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives was locked in a
heated debate on Thursday over what kind of proportional
representation (PR) voting system to use at next year's general
election.
The dividing issue was whether candidates will represent a
province, as they did in past elections, or a regency.
The dominant Golkar and the Armed Forces factions wanted
representation at regency level while the minority United
Development Party (PPP) and the government-sanctioned Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI) said candidates should be elected at
provincial level.
During a meeting of the House Special Committee deliberating
the electoral bill, representatives of the PPP said electing
candidates at regency level would effectively amount to using the
original government proposal of district representation (DR),
which all four factions agreed to drop.
They pointed out that 260 of the 310 regencies nationwide
would only have a single representative given limits to the
minimum number of people in constituencies attached to each DPR
seat.
One seat must represent at least 400,000 people, but a regency
with more than 600,000 people is entitled to more than one seat.
PPP representative Robbani Thoha said the system proposed by
Golkar would be unfair to the losers in a single-seat regency
because the candidate who won the seat would effectively win the
entire vote.
PDI legislator Wiyanjono said the DPR would end up consisting
more of members elected through the DR system than through the PR
system if ABRI and Golkar's recommendations were followed.
The four factions were earlier thought to have agreed on a
combination of PR and DR systems, but it is now clear that Golkar
and ABRI want more seats to be allocated to representatives
elected at regency level and a smaller number based on
proportional representation.
Golkar argued that members of the provincial legislatures
(DPRD I) should be elected at regency level and members of the
regency legislatures (DPRD II) elected at district level.
PPP and PDI argued that members of the DPRD I and DPRD II
should be elected at provincial and regency levels respectively.
ABRI proposed that DPRD I members be voted for at provincial
level and DPRD II at district level.
Ryaas Rasyid from the government team set up to draft the bill
said the government would leave it up to the House to resolve
their differences. Ryaas accompanied Minister of Home Affairs
Syarwan Hamid throughout the session.
The committee agreed to discuss the matter during a closed-
door consultation.
Also deliberated on Thursday were the minimum requirements
political parties must meet in order to contest the election, the
process of voter registration and the nomination of legislative
candidates.
The committee will resume deliberations on Friday.
Political observers called on the House to focus deliberations
more on how to ensure a free and democratic election takes place
rather than on what kind of system to adopt.
"I don't think the problem lies in the election system,"
Syamsuddin Harris of the National Institute of Sciences (LIPI)
said in a round-table discussion on the election organized by the
Institute for Economic and Social Research (LP3ES) and the
Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).
Syamsuddin said he supported retention of the PR system.
Golkar legislator Slamet Effendy Yusuf agreed that it was more
important to focus on ensuring that the polls were well organized
and diligently supervised.
Slamet conceded that past elections had been marred by fraud
and said this could no longer be tolerated.
"The presence of the Independent Election Monitoring Committee
(KIPP) and international election monitoring organizations is
recommended," he said.
KIPP secretary-general Mulyana W. Kusumah said: "If the
proportional system is used next year, an accountable monitoring
system will need to be put in place." (imn/aan)