Law revision may raise House seats

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.