Let the people elect their president: Survey

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

If the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) is going to allow the people to directly elect the president and vice president in 2004, then it should allow them to make that selection all the way through, rather than halfway.

In a survey by Taylor Nelson Sofres Indonesia, 74 percent of the 3,580 people polled endorsed a direct election to choose the nation's next president and vice president.

If the direct election method failed to settle the issue, quite likely given the present open field, 55 percent of the respondents felt there should be a second round of elections.

Only 28 percent felt that the task should be entrusted to the MPR. The remaining 17 percent said they had not formed an opinion.

The MPR is currently debating the presidential election issue as part of the draft to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which is expected to be endorsed at its annual meeting in August.

While there is a consensus on a direct presidential election, instead of going through the MPR, the assembly is still divided on how to settle the matter if the election were to prove inconclusive.

The MPR's committee preparing the amendment has come up with two options: Organizing a second-round election, or handing the matter back to the MPR.

The factions in the MPR were accused of political horse- trading in 1999 when Abdurrahman Wahid was elected as president even though his Nation Awakening Party (PKB) had come third in the general election.

Megawati Soekarnoputri, whose Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) won the general election, took the vice presidency. Golkar, which came second, saw its chairman, Akbar Tandjung, clinching the House speakership while chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN) Amien Rais, whose party came fifth, secured the speakership of the MPR.

Hamzah Haz, whose United Development Party (PPP) came third, secured a post in Abdurrahman's cabinet before he was promoted to vice president when Megawati became president in July last year.

The survey was inconclusive on two other matters regarding the presidential election.

Only 46 percent of the respondents said the president should be nominated by political parties; 48 percent said the president and vice president should be elected as a single package.