New bill tightens rules on election contestants

New bill tightens rules on election contestants

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The country's highest electoral authority said on Thursday it
would soon submit a new bill to the House of Representatives that
would impose tighter requirements for those of the country's more
than 300 political parties wishing to contest the general
election in 2004.

Mulyana W. Kusumah, a member of the General Election
Commission (KPU), could not say, however, when the bill would be
submitted to the House for deliberation.

He said the bill would require any party contesting the
election to have branches in at least two-thirds of the country's
32 provinces and in two-thirds of the regencies in each of the
provinces in which it had a presence.

"In addition to that, each political party must be able to
prove that it has at least 1,000 members by showing their
membership cards to the KPU," Mulyana, head of the commission's
political party section, told The Jakarta Post.

He said that under the bill, it would not be overly easy for
political parties to meet the requirements for eligibility to
take part in the 2004 elections.

Under the current Law No. 2/1999 on general elections,
election contestants are obliged to have branches in only half of
the total number of provinces and in half of the regencies in
these provinces.

Earlier on Thursday, Minister of Justice and Human Rights
Yusril Ihza Mahendra said that some 300 new political parties,
besides the 48 ones that contested the 1999 election, had
registered with his office to take part in the next national
poll.

Mulyana said that this came as no surprise because under the
current regulations, a group of only 50 people could set up a
political party to contest an election after the relevant
documents had been formalized by a notary public.

He said that in future all parties would have to pass the
KPU's verification process, which would determine whether they
were eligible to take part the 2004 poll or not.

"It's not so easy for a new party to have branches in 22
provinces, and in every province it must have branches in two-
thirds of the municipalities or regencies," Mulyana pointed out.

Mulyana said the KPU wanted to be given sufficient time to
verify such a large number of new political parties. "We hope
that the experience of 1999, when the KPU was given only one
month to verify the political parties, will not be repeated," he
said.

He added that ideally, the next national election would be
contested by only 20 parties.

Mulyana said that at least six of the 48 political parties
contesting the 1999 election were expected to be eligible to take
part in the next poll.

These parties included the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party, the National Awakening Party
(PKB), the United Development Party (PPP), the National Mandate
Party (PAN), and the Crescent and Star Party (PBB), he said.

Mulyana explained that the KPU's legal draftsmen had also
completed two other political bills, namely a bill on political
parties and a bill on the structure and status of the House of
Representatives and the People's Consultative Assembly.

The bills had been forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs
for a final check before being submitted to the House for
deliberation, he added.