Multiparty system is up to the people, scholar says

JAKARTA (JP): Political professor Deliar Noer says the people should be allowed to determine how many political parties Indonesia needs through general elections, rather than by legislations.

A multiparty election system would more effectively limit the number of parties people wish to have, the former University of Indonesia lecturer told a seminar on Saturday.

The election system should set the minimum amount of votes a party or a candidate must obtain to ensure representation in the House of Representatives, Deliar said, citing election practices of some countries abroad.

A hefty deposit should be required of parties or candidates in contesting the election, with the risk of forfeiting the money if they don't win the minimum percentage of votes, he said.

He describes this system as a "natural selection" process because parties that do not have widespread support from the people will find it difficult to survive. "A party will have to think twice before deciding to contest the election," he said.

Deliar, who obtained his masters in political science from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, was commenting on President Soeharto's statement Friday that the present three-party system should not be changed because it was the result of 20 years of painful and difficult consensus-building process.

Soeharto, who was personally involved in streamlining the number of political parties in Indonesia to three in the early 1970s, said a multiparty system is not only unrealistic for Indonesia but it would also be a setback for the country.

Five legislations, first enacted in 1975 and improved in 1985, underpin the current political system in Indonesia, which limits the number of political organizations allowed to contest the election to three: Golkar, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).

Deliar said article 28 of the 1945 Constitution guarantees people freedom to organize, to assemble and to express opinions and therefore, people should be allowed to form a new party if they wish to.

"Let the people decide on the appropriate number of political parties this country has," he said, adding that limiting the number of political parties to three does not reflect the people's sovereignty, the essence of democracy.

Referring to concerns that a multiparty system would plunge Indonesia into the anarchy and chaos seen in the 1950s, Deliar said Indonesians have become politically mature enough to live in a multiparty system.

"We don't have to worry about repeating past failures because our people have grown mature in politics," he said. "They are more critical in voting for which party."

In the past year, Indonesia has seen the emergence of a number of new political parties contesting the three-party system. They include the Indonesian Democratic Union Party (PUDI), founded by controversial politician Sri Bintang Pamungkas, and the Democratic People's Party (PRD), founded by young activists.

Neither PUDI nor PRD have been recognized by the government and will not take part in the 1997 general election.

Leaders and members of the PRD have been arrested following a bloody riot in Central Jakarta on July 27 which the government has blamed on the group.

The seminar Saturday, organized by the Jakarta chapter of the Corps of Alumni of the Indonesian Moslem University Students Association, also featured. Gen. (ret.) Abdul Haris Nasution, and political scholars Arbi Sanit and Yusril Ihza Mahendra. (imn)