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)