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)