PPP expects decent showing in 1997 election

PPP expects decent showing in 1997 election

JAKARTA (JP): The United Development Party is still hopeful that it can make a decent showing in the next general election in 1997.

The United Development Party (PPP) chairman, Ismail Hasan Metareum, said the party would play the role of a "scavenger", picking up small amounts of votes here and there, sufficient to win seats in the House of Representatives under the proportional representation election system, Antara reported yesterday.

However, Ismail Hasan said that the party will stand little chance of winning any seats if the election is held under the first-past-the-post system, in which each district seat is contested and awarded to the winner, even by a margin of one vote.

He was referring to research, commissioned by President Soeharto to the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, to study which of the two electoral systems is better suited to Indonesia.

Addressing party supporters in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, Ismail Hasan said on Tuesday night that the district system would not suit the current condition in Indonesia, where "the masses have been depoliticized and political parties emaciated."

If the system is adopted in the present condition, the party will not be represented in the House of Representatives, he said.

The party, historically a merger of four Moslem parties, has come a distant second to Golkar in all the last five general elections held under President Soeharto since 1971.

In 1992, it polled 17 percent of the total votes, against Golkar's 68 percent, and was just ahead of the Indonesian Democratic Party, which polled 15 percent.

With the next election only two years away, Golkar is already ahead in terms of preparations, consolidating the organization nationwide. Chairman Harmoko has already promised to improve on Golkar's 1992 performance.

Under the current system, the seats in the House of Representatives are divided in accordance to the votes polled by the parties.

Officials and analysts have ruled out the possibility of changing the electoral system for 1997.

But, in an attempt to improve the ways the elections and ballot counting is monitored, the government issued last month a decree allowing the political parties to appoint their witnesses from other districts if they could not find one locally.

Ismail Hasan dismissed this concession as "making little difference" to the way the election is administered. "It won't stop the cheating, deceptions, injustices and discriminations," he said.

To ensure a truly open, just and fair election, the political parties should be involved in organizing the elections, he said.

"I can see that there's a genuine concern in the new government regulation, but it is not a major change," he said. "The United Development Party has long demanded that the political parties be involved in the election committees, right down to the lowest levels." (emb)