Presidential election

Presidential election

From Forum Keadilan

The amendment of Article 6 of the 1945 Constitution regarding
the election of the president and the vice president as a single
team is a step forward in turning Indonesia into a genuinely
democratic country.

Unfortunately, this bill has been tarnished by a stipulation
that in the event that no presidential election team meets the
requirements, it is the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) that
will elect the president. The reason is cost efficiency.

If the bill gets the green light, the amendment process will
be no more than a lie to the public. If there are three teams of
presidential candidates, then there will surely not be a single
team that will be able to collect the required number of votes.

If using a second-round system entails a high cost, we could
try to combine our system with that prevailing in the U.S. Each
province would have their electoral votes, the number of which
would be in proportion to the size of the population.

Counting in the first ballot for each team would be based on
the popular vote system. If no team collected 51 percent of the
popular vote as required, the electoral votes of each team would
be counted under a "winner takes all" system. In this way it is
likely that one presidential team would be able to secure more
than half of the electoral votes as minimally required even
though there may be several contesting presidential teams. Only
when no requirement is fulfilled at this stage would the second
round of the election be implemented.

The essence is that we should no longer apply the
representative system that we have now. It is too naive to say
that the choice of MPR members is the choice of the people. Vox
populi vox dei, so the saying goes, does it not?

CHRISTOPHER LIMARJO

Central Sulawesi