Jakarta KPUD to get its five members
Arya Abhiseka, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite criticism surrounding the process of fit and proper test to elect members of the Jakarta General Elections Commission (Jakarta KPUD), the General Elections Commission (KPU) is still optimistic about finding eligible candidates to fill the five vacant seats.
"We will have selected the five members for the Jakarta KPUD between May 19 and May 20, as planned. The quality of the candidates were considerably solid," said Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, chairman of the KPU, who conducted the test for the Jakarta KPUD on Sunday.
Although Nazaruddin told The Jakarta Post that there would be eligible candidates from the available nominees, he did not deny the fact that most of the candidates were still quite far from the desired standard for members of the KPUD.
Some criticism has been raised after the KPU, due to time and budget constraints, sent only one of its nine members to conduct a fit and proper test to select five KPUD members for each province nationwide.
Each member is to travel to several provinces and bring back interview recordings and documents on the suitability test, which are to be submitted to the commission plenary meeting. The selected KPUD members are to be made public nationwide either on May 19 or May 20.
Candidates to fill the KPUDs posts were screened based on their general and technical knowledge on the mechanism of the 2004 general elections.
"What the KPU has done is clearly ineffective to attain the best results from the candidates, as only one person witnessed the entire process.
"They said that the recordings and documents would be used only if a candidate was considered ineligible. If their reasoning is to tackle budget and time constraints, simply listening to recordings and going through documents will not save the KPU any time," said Hadar Gumay from the Center for Electoral Reform (CETRO).
The ten candidates competing for the five seats at the Jakarta KPUD include: Ariza Putra from the Indonesian National Youth Committee (KNPI); Juri Ardianto from the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP); M. Taufik from the Jakarta Research Center (PPEJ); Hamdan Rasyid from the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI); Rachman Nansyaah from the academic community and Tubagus Haryo Kardiyanto from the Legal Aid Institute (LBH).
The remaining four candidates are public figures Parnawaty Khalid, Imas Sidik, Mufliza and Nursyamsiah.
The KPUD is the KPU's provincial branch in organizing the upcoming 2004 general elections.
An independent team that was set up previously by the Jakarta governor nominated 10 candidates from about 192 who registered for the KPUD slots. The 10 candidates would then be pared down by the KPU to fill the five available seats.
The five members of the Jakarta KPUD will then elect five members for the KPUD in each of the Indonesian capital's five mayoralties and Kepulauan Seribu regency.
Indonesia will have its first direct legislative election on April 5 next year, which will be followed by the direct presidential election between June and August.