Parties under fire for recruiting actors, actresses
Parties under fire for recruiting actors, actresses
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Analysts criticized political parties on Wednesday for their lack
of commitment to quality elections, as reflected in the
nomination of several actors as legislative candidates.
Smita Notosusanto from the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro)
said nominating celebrities as legislative candidates was a poor
start for a country trying to develop a democracy through fair
and transparent elections.
"The upcoming election will be no different from previous
elections, when people never knew who represented them in the
legislative bodies," Smita said.
Major parties including the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and
the Golkar Party announced recently that they were recruiting
soap opera actors to run as legislative candidates.
PDI Perjuangan has tapped actors Desy Ratnasari, Marissa Haque
and Deddy Sutomo, as well as singer Franky Sahilatua, and is said
to have approached another actor, Sophia Latjuba.
The PKB, which is affiliated with the country's largest Muslim
organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), has listed actors Rieke Dyah
Pitaloka and Ayu Azhari as candidates, while the Golkar Party has
enlisted Nurul Arifin.
Riswanda Imawan from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta
criticized political parties for their failure to change their
mind-set and continuing to regard general elections as "political
entertainment" rather than a forum to promote programs aimed at
serving public interests.
"I'm not underestimating the actors and actresses, but
couldn't these parties offer a dialog with voters about their
platforms instead of exploiting attractive people?" Riswanda
asked.
He suggested that activists concerned with gender issues
protest the exploitation of women by political parties to garner
votes.
Smita said the House of Representatives should share the blame
for the flawed recruitment process of legislative candidates,
which gives the central boards of parties a dominant role.
"During deliberation of the election bill at the House we
repeatedly asked legislators to introduce articles to govern the
appointment of legislative candidates, especially the selection
itself and standard requirements (to be met by candidates).
"But legislators rejected the idea because they don't want to
lose their privileges. Now we only see 'questionable people'
representing us at the House," Smita said.
She said the public should be allowed to supervise the process
of selecting legislative candidates to examine whether money
politics and nepotism were involved.
Some parties are reportedly demanding that potential
legislative candidates pay as much as Rp 400 million (US$47,000)
for their nominations.