Parties call for soft poll rules

Parties call for soft poll rules

JAKARTA (JP): Political parties planning to contest next
year's general election have welcomed the government's drafts on
new political laws but demanded improvements, particularly
concerning elections and political parties.

The drafts were submitted to the House of Representatives
(DPR) on Thursday for deliberation.

The government-drafted legislation covers general elections,
the function and composition of the DPR, the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) and regional legislative councils
(DPRD), and political parties.

National Mandate Party (PAN) secretary-general Faisal Basri
said his party might not have any problems with the requirements
stipulated in the bills on parties and elections.

"It wouldn't be a problem, for PAN anyway. Hopefully, we'll
have chapters in the country's 27 provinces by the end of
November," he told The Jakarta Post.

The draft law on elections requires political parties to have
a minimum of 14 provincial chapters nationwide or 1 million
registered supporters before it can contest an election.

PAN, with key figure Amien Rais as its chairman, is believed
to a strong contender for the next general election, which is
slated for May 26 next year. The party launched its West Java
branch on Friday, following the establishment of its Yogyakarta
branch.

Faisal, however, suggested the law not prevent smaller
political parties from participating in the election just because
of a failure to obtain 1 million signatures.

A political party's failure to contest an election should stem
from its inability to naturally generate enough support, he said,
as indicated by election results.

"Perhaps, the government should issue a decree stipulating
that there would be no financial assistance for all parties
contesting the election."

Parties should be able to contest the elections using whatever
amount of money they had, he said, to ensure fairness.

Similarly, PAN chairman Amien Rais suggested that the
requirement of 1 million signatures could be reduced to 500,000
signatures to allow smaller parties to participate in the
democratic process.

Regarding a clause in the draft law for parties which limits
the amount of money a political party can annually receive from
individuals to Rp 5 million and from corporations or institutions
to Rp 50 million, Faisal said the clause would only benefit the
dominant Golkar party.

"Golkar already has such a huge amount of money to finance its
election preparations," said Faisal, who is an economist.

Audit

He suggested that the law should regulate a transparent audit
for a political party's financial status rather than limiting the
amount allowed to be collected.

Asked about the requirement that members of the Civil Servants
Corps (Korpri) obtain their superiors' approval before joining a
political party (other than Golkar), Faisal said it was part of a
compromise to safeguard Golkar in the next election. The
government has always maintained that Golkar is not a party.

But he agreed that as bureaucrats, civil servants should not
get involved in parties.

The deputy chairman of the National Awakening Party's (PKB)
advisory council, Cholil Bisri, said there should be no clause
preventing government employees from joining political parties.

"I think the members of the Civil Servant Corps should either
be prohibited or given absolute freedom to join any party of
their choice," he said. If they were prohibited, this would mean
equal treatment of civil servants with the Armed Forces, whose
members are not allowed to vote in elections, he said.

"Civil servants should act as the real servants of the
people," he said.

On the limitation on donations to a party, Cholil demanded
fairer treatment for all political parties.

"The government should provide financial assistance to small
parties. Otherwise, parties must be given freedom to collect
money from private donors," he said.

He, however, said that he had no objection to the requirement
of having chapters in at least 14 provinces or obtaining 1
million signatures, saying it was reasonable.

Meanwhile, Nirwan Sembiring, the secretary-general of the
Democratic Catholic Party (PKD), said the new bill should be
rejected because it was a government move to suppress its
political rivals in the next general election.

"Only voters have the right to reject or to accept the
existence of any political party," he said.

"Golkar can easily collect 1 million signatures and it hopes
that other parties will not be able to do so," he said.

He called on other smaller political parties to join forces to
fight against the bills' passage.

"The three draft laws are part of (President B.J.) Habibie's
move to maintain its existence and we and other political parties
must join forces to fight this corrupt mentality," he said.
(imn/prb/43)