PDI-P insists on keeping proportional electoral system

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A special committee of the House of Representatives will this week start debate on the electoral system, with the largest faction, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), insisting on maintaining the current proportional system.

PDI Perjuangan legislator Firman Jaya Daeli confirmed on Saturday that his faction would fight for the maintenance of the proportional system although critics said that the system negated the accountability of legislators to their constituents.

"Our agenda is to maintain the current proportional system. We will fight to push our proposal," said Firman.

The committee deliberating the electoral system is one of four special committees established by the House to debate contentious aspects of the electoral bill. All of the proceedings in the four committees are closed to the public.

Firman noted that his faction's wish to keep the current proportional system was based on Article 22 (e) of the 1945 Constitution, which says that the contestants elections to the House of Representatives, and provincial, regency and municipality legislative councils are political parties.

"It is the political parties that will determine (who becomes legislators). The issue of accountability is the responsibility of the parties during the process of recruiting candidates to stand for election," Firman said.

In past elections, Indonesia used what is termed the proportional system here, a system in which the people vote for political parties, and individual candidates.

This system is widely criticized for distancing legislators and councillors from their constituents as their primary loyalty is to their parties.

Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno openly criticized the proportional system for offering voters "a cat in the bag," meaning that the voters did not know who their representatives would be.

Hari said that the proportional system was not democratic as it allowed the central board of a political party to appoint its preferred cadres as legislative candidates.

Therefore, Hari proposed that the electoral bill combine the proportional system with the inclusion of lists of individual candidates on the ballot papers.

This way, people would see who the candidates of the parties they were choosing were.

The PDI Perjuangan, however, is not the only faction that has rejected the government's proposal to apply a combination of the proportional system and an open-list of candidates.

The second largest faction in the House, the Golkar Party faction, has said it intended to reject the combined system. According to Golkar, there was no need to refer to the electoral system in the bill.

The United Development Party (PPP), the third largest faction, meanwhile asked for more explanations about the combined system.

Three other factions, the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Reform (a coalition of the National Mandate Party and the Justice Party) and the Indonesian Military (TNI)/Police factions supported the adoption of a combined proportional and open-list system.

The bill stipulates that the elections for members of the House, and provincial, regency and municipality legislatures be conducted using the proportional system, with an open-list of candidates.

During one hearing with the electoral bill committee, Minister Hari said that the adoption of the new electoral system would help promote the accountability of legislators.