Luring but excessive element

The General Elections Commission (KPU) has again become an object of public scorn and a target of complaint due to its sluggish working system. The focus this time is its Team of 15, which is responsible for the selection of organizations to be represented in the interest group faction in the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

Last week the Indonesian Buddhists Association was among those who protested the selection process and questioned the nomination of an unaccredited Buddhist organization as a community representative.

Minister of Agriculture Soleh Solahuddin and Indonesian Farmers Association chairman Siswono Yudhohusodo also blasted the KPU for apparently failing to provide seats for representatives of the farming community.

Executives of the Indonesian Association of Small Entrepreneurs and the Ansor Islamic youth organization demonstrated outside the KPU office on Friday to protest the selection process.

Although the results of the selection have not been officially announced, copies of the list of the team's nominations have circulated among the public. All these complaints were lodged amid dwindling public patience because there is so little time for other reform agendas. Society earlier grumbled over the commission's slow vote count.

While the KPU is now dominated by minor political parties, who failed to win even minimum support in the recent general election, the problem it is now tackling is complicated enough. The 1945 Constitution, which stipulates that interest groups must be represented in the MPR, is not explicit about the matter. The Constitution is known for its brief, vague articles.

The deliberation of this problem by the team has been made more complicated by the blatant personal interests of each member -- notably the smallest parties, each of which is overly ambitious to get its own people into the faction so that they will have a means to channel their voices in the country's highest constitutional body.

If only all the team members realized the true significance of their mission and the complexity of the selection process, perhaps they would not use the sessions as a place to fight for their own interests. In this age of openness, where new professional organizations have been mushrooming, to select the real representative for each profession has become more difficult.

For example, it is not easy to select a representative of the press because there are now scores of journalists associations. Ideally, each of the group representatives will focus on the interests of his or her respective group's aspirations.

But with all the personal interests and the already existing problems, the team's meetings appear to be nothing more than bull sessions where one hears the names of not only genuine professional groups but also of non-governmental organizations, many of which have never been heard of.

On the other hand, to the most victorious political parties which have fielded presidential candidates, the 65-member interest group faction will be very seductive. How many of their own men they get accepted into the faction will be of great consequence to them.

However, objectively speaking, the new faction will be starkly awkward -- if not redundant -- in a democratic MPR because all grown-up citizens, including members of professional organizations, used their right to vote for their favorite political party in the June polls.

A professor of constitutional law at Gadjah Mada University was right in his recent call for the next MPR session to phase out the interest group faction for that very reason.

If it is too late for the General Session to take such an substantial decision, the KPU could now rule that members of this faction do not have the right to vote in presidential elections. Members of the faction would have to concentrate on issues related to their professions only. It would be more ethical and responsible.