`Political pressure high in districting'

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A member of the General Elections Commission (KPU) said there was a great deal of political pressure being applied to the process of drawing up electoral districts for the 2004 legislative elections.

Mulyana W. Kusumah said on Thursday the KPU had received a letter from Acehnese legislators demanding the province be given 14 seats in the House of Representatives from the 12 it received in 1999.

He said the Acehnese legislators claimed the province's increased population could be converted into 14 seats in the legislature, if they were given one seat for every 325,000 residents.

According to Law No. 12/2003 on elections, provinces will get the same number of seats in the House in 2004 as they received in 1999. New provinces will get three seats each, regardless of their population.

Mulyana said there was also pressure for the new provinces to be given fewer than the three seats promised them in the elections bill.

"The provinces of North Maluku and Gorontalo, for example, would only get seats in 2004 (based on their populations)," he said.

Provinces that were split to form new provinces also will be pressured to reduce their number of allocated seats, despite stipulations in the law that they will receive the same number of seats as in 1999.

"The pressure will continue and things will become complicated in a number of provinces that could get more than 12 seats in the House," he said.

If a province receives more than 12 seats, the KPU will divide the province into several districts. This process of districting, he said, will no doubt concern political parties worried about the impact on their seats.

Based on KPU estimates, 13 provinces will receive more than 12 seats in the House in 2004.

Jakarta had 21 seat in 1999, Banten 19, West Java 87, Central Java 78, East Java 82, North Sumatra 28, Riau 14, West Sumatra 14, South Sumatra 19, Lampung 19, South Sulawesi 24, East Nusa Tenggara 13 and Papua 13.

"There is a lot of political nuances in districting," he said.

The Center for Electoral Reform has warned that political parties could lose seats in the House if the KPU does not fairly decide on the electoral districts.

Ramlan Surbakti, the KPU deputy chairman, said the commission would begin discussing mechanisms for drawing up electoral districts for local legislative councils on Friday. This comes after the population and voter census was completed last Wednesday.

The Central Statistics Agency said their were 141.97 million eligible voters in 2003, however noting that the census only covered 64 percent of Aceh province, 92 percent of Maluku and 99.8 percent of Papua.