KPU says no extension for candidate registration

Moch. N. Kurniawan and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

All 24 political parties contesting the general election will have their last chance on Monday to submit all the documents required of their candidates to the General Elections Commission (KPU), or else they will be disqualified from standing.

KPU member Anas Urbaningrum, who chairs the working committee in charge of verifying compliance with the requirements on the part of candidates, said the KPU would accept any further documents after Monday.

"The KPU will check the documents from Jan. 20 through Jan. 26, and make the final decisions on Jan. 27.

"We will announce the final list of legislative candidates on Jan. 28 and Jan. 29," he told reporters over the weekend.

He also said it would not permit the parties to add anymore male candidates to their lists as the KPU already had a full roster of candidates in each electoral district.

Additional women candidates, however, could still be added to the lists for the purpose of meeting the minimum 30 percent quota for women candidates in cases where parties had failed to fulfill quota during the registration period that ended on Dec. 29, he explained.

Law No. 12/2003 on general elections provides that the House of Representatives shall consist of 550 legislators.

The Law also requires each party to put forward lists of legislative candidates amounting to 120 percent of the total number of seats up for grabs, with women candidates accounting for at least 30 percent of these.

The first document verification process ran from Dec. 30 through Jan. 5, when a number of parties failed to meet the 30 percent quota.

Anas also said that a party could replace candidates that failed to pass the first stage of verification or had withdrawn their candidacies.

Indonesia will hold legislative elections on April 5, the first round of the presidential election on July 5 and the second round on Sept. 20.

Separately, some 40 members of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) withdrew their candidacies, admitting that they were unable to meet the administrative requirements.

PDI Perjuangan secretary-general Soetjipto said the candidates' withdrawals was due to the onerous requirements, and that the party's executive board would decide on replacements for them.

"We will decide who is to replace them, but I want to stress that their withdrawals is not because of internal problems but rather to strict requirements," Soetjipto said on Saturday.

Party leader Megawati Soekarnoputri led a meeting late Sunday to select the 40 replacements.

However, a source inside the party said that many candidates had withdrawn due to serious internecine conflict among party members.

A member of the party's executive board said there was a possibility that more candidates would withdraw from the election process because of the internal dispute.

Separately, National Awakening Party (PKB) secretary-general Syaifullah Yusuf said the PKB had submitted the names of 613 legislative candidates to the KPU, more than 40 percent of whom were women.

"We expect that at least 550 aspirants will pass the KPU screening," he said.