KPU opts for electoral districts

KPU opts for electoral districts

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The General Elections Commission (KPU) is putting the legitimacy
of next year's polls on the line as it decided on Tuesday to
break the law to end a stalemate over electoral districts.

Following a long-standing debate, KPU members ruled that
overpopulated municipalities or regencies would be considered as
one electoral district although based on population they deserve
more.

The decision violates article 46 (2) of Law No. 12/2003 on
general elections, which stipulates that an electoral district is
allocated with between three and 12 seats at the provincial
legislature.

West Jakarta, East Jakarta, South Jakarta and the North
Sumatra towns of Medan and Deli Serdang are examples of densely
populated areas where the general elections law cannot work
properly. They deserve 15, 18, 14, 14 and 15 seats respectively.

KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti said on Tuesday the
commission was referring to the article 46 (1), which stipulates
that an electoral district comprises a municipality/regency or a
merger of municipalities and or regencies.

"The article only allows KPU to merge several regencies or
municipalities into one electoral district, but not to separate a
regency or municipality into more than one district," Ramlan
said.

Ramlan said KPU realized that articles 46 (1) and (2) were
contradictory to one another, thus choosing one of them would
simply violate another and the law itself.

The law gives the KPU the authority to determine electoral
districts for the House of Representatives, provincial
legislative councils and regency or municipality legislative
councils.

Ramlan said that despite violating the law, the decision would
give all political parties, including the small ones, a great
chance to win seats on provincial legislative councils.

KPU announced on Monday that 1,780 councillors in 30
provinces, and another 13,525 in 410 regencies and municipalities
would be elected in the 2004 general elections.

The number of new councillors to be elected in general
elections is an increase from 1,455 councillors in provinces and
another 10,495 in regencies and municipalities in the 1999 poll.

When it comes to the election of the House of Representatives
members, Ramlan said KPU had decided that based on population a
seat equals 425,000 voters in Java, while outside Java a seat
equals 325,000 people.

"We made this decision as we considered that population above
600 people per square kilometer is a densely populated area. All
of those areas are located in Java," he said.

Under a simple calculation, Jakarta with its 8.62 million
people will be allotted 20 seats in the 2004 elections, up from
18 seats in 1999.

But Papua with 2.4 million people should only get seven seats,
down from 13 in 1999. Maluku with a population of 1.185 million
should get four seats in 2004, compared to six in 1999, and South
Kalimantan with a total population of 3.181 million should secure
10 seats in 2004 from 11 in 1999.

However, since the general election law also requires that old
provinces get the same number of seats they got in 1999, Papua
would get 13 seats instead of seven, Maluku would obtain six and
South Kalimantan 11.

Ramlan also said that new provinces Gorontalo, North Maluku,
and Bangka Belitung islands would secure three seats in the House
regardless of their tiny population.

The KPU decision would be tried out with regional KPU in early
August to see how it works and would be opened to a public
scrutiny for two weeks afterwards, he said.