KPU to decide on interest groups' representatives in Assembly

JAKARTA (JP): The General Elections Commission (KPU) is working on the criteria for which interest groups will be given 65 unelected seats in the People's Consultative Assembly and take part in the presidential election in November, an official said.

Harun Alrasid said here on Monday the seats in the Assembly would be given to representatives of groups whose interests were not accommodated by existing political parties. He cited intellectuals and the Badui tribespeople in remote areas of Lebak regency, West Java.

"They should be represented in the Assembly," he said.

The Assembly's 700 members will comprise 500 members of the House of Representatives, 135 regional representatives and 65 representatives from interest groups.

Politician Sri Bintang Pamungkas, airing the view of smaller political parties, urged the elections commission on Monday to phase out interest groups from the Assembly and add more House seats to be contested in the next elections.

"Those people (interest groups) could channel their interests through the existing political parties," Bintang, who is also a member of the KPU, said.

Harun dismissed Bintang's call as unconstitutional, saying the interests groups were guaranteed seats in the Assembly by the 1945 Constitution.

The Constitution should be amended if the majority of people want to phase out the interest groups, Harun, the Muslim People Party's representative on the elections commission and a constitutional law expert, said.

Nurcholish Madjid, a Muslim intellectual, also has recently called for the Constitution to be amended because it is no longer compatible with the present situation.

Meanwhile, KPU chairman Rudini said the elections commission was mulling whether to allow Minister/State Secretary Akbar Tandjung and State Minister for Investment Hamzah Haz campaign for their parties.

Akbar is chairman of the Golkar Party while Hamzah chairs the United Development Party (PPP).

"They may be allowed to campaign, but the government should appoint ad interim ministers in their place," Rudini said on Monday.

The elections commission has barred all government officials, including ministers, from campaigning in the general election.

However, Rudini said the idea of allowing the two ministers to campaign was just a possibility which the commission had yet to decide on. For the time being, the existing rules stand, he said.

"If a party breaches the rules by fielding ministers during campaigning, the campaign rally (in which the ministers are participating) could be dispersed. For more serious violations, a party could lose its campaigning rights in the area where the incident took place and the hardest sanction is for the party to be disqualified from campaigning," he said. (rms/edt)