Multiparty system is up to the people, scholar says

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)