Law revision may raise House seats
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Seats in the House of Representatives may increase to 556 from 550 as stipulated in Law No. 12/2003 on elections, as lawmakers will soon amend the legislation.
The decision to revise the law received full support from the General Elections Commission (KPU), which expects the amendment to take place before Dec. 22.
Deputy chairman of House Commission II for domestic and legal affairs Ferry Mursyidan Baldan said after a meeting with KPU members on Tuesday the revision would start as soon as possible because the House would start its recess on Dec. 19.
House internal rules allow a short-cut procedure to be used for a bill or on deliberations to an amendment to a law, in which legislation does not need a special committee to debate it.
Ferry said the House would exercise its initiative right to amend the law, considering the legislation was drafted by the government.
The planned revision will be made to Article 47 on the number of House seats and to the explanatory addendum to Article 48, paragraph 1 (b) on allocation of House seats to the provinces of Maluku, North Sulawesi and Papua.
KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti said following the amendment, Papua would have its House seats increased from the present 10 to 13, Maluku would have six from the current four and North Sulawesi seven instead of six.
Protests from the provinces were directed at the KPU over what they called an unfair allocation of House seats, because based on the existing law they would have to share the seat allocation with provinces that had already separated from them: West Irian Jaya, North Maluku and Gorontalo.
Ramlan said the revised law should take effect by Dec. 22, otherwise it would affect the KPU's preparations for the election.
KPU has identified the period between Dec. 22 and Dec. 29 as the time for political parties to submit the names of their legislative candidates. The commission began on Tuesday the distribution of registration forms for legislative candidates.
"If the revision is not completed before Dec. 22, it will disrupt political party preparations for selection and submission of their legislative candidates and the rest of the KPU schedules," he said.
Earlier in the day, the Indonesia Our Motherland Party (PITA), Republic of Indonesia Unitary Party (PKRI), Indonesian Nationalist Unifying Party (PPNI), Indonesian Catholic Democratic Party (PKDI) and the Love Indonesian Nation Democratic Party (PDKBI) filed complaints with the KPU over the latter's decision to eliminate them from next year's polls.
PKRI secretary-general Edison D. Haloho said he suspected that irregularities in the factual screening in at least six provinces had destroyed his party's hopes of contesting the 2004 elections.
"In East Java, for example, our party was verified in four regencies and municipalities, including Pacitan and Ngawi, although we had never registered the areas with the KPU," he said.
The party, he added, had instead registered Pasuruan, Probolinggo, and Jember for the verification, but the local elections commission did not conduct the screening there.
He also claimed his party had passed the factual screening in Papua, but the document was not found in the KPU office.
Separately, PDKBI secretary-general Anton Reinhart said his party should have passed the factual verification in 21 of 26 provinces screened.
"Based on reports from our branch offices, we failed only in Bali, South Sulawesi, Banten, Jambi and Bangka Belitung," he said. "We need clarification from KPU on why we failed the factual screening."
The PDKBI was mulling the filing of a lawsuit against the KPU, he said.
KPU chairman Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin said the KPU would allow disappointed political parties to challenge the commission's decision in court.
Only 24 parties finally made it to the 2004 election, while 48 contested the last one in 1999.