Presidential elections bill may produce poor candidates, experts say

Berni K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As lawmakers prepare to deliberate the bill providing for the country's first direct presidential election, analysts on Monday pointed to flaws they said would limit voters' options and result in candidates not been filtered based on their leadership qualities.

The observers urged lawmakers not to approve the bill just yet as it contained a number of controversial articles, including one that confined the race for the presidency to the candidates of parties with at least 20 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives.

"I see no reason why only parties with 20 percent of legislative seats are allowed to nominate presidential candidates," said Indria Samego of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

Submitted to the House of Representatives last month, the bill offers two options for electing the president and vice president.

The first requires the presidential election be held after the general election, which will determine the political composition of the House. The second one calls for simultaneous elections.

Indria raised concerns over the first option. Once the victors in the general election had been announced, only the top five political parties could nominate presidential candidates.

This would limit the voter's choice to five candidates.

"This (direct presidential) election will be our first, so we should give the widest possible chance for everyone to participate," said Indria.

But backers of the first option warned that randomly elected presidents might lack the political support of the House as happened following the 1999 general election.

Although the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) won the 1999 election, its chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri lost the presidency to Abdurrahman Wahid, who founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB).

As the PKB had just a few seats, Indonesia saw constant haggling between the House and the president until Abdurrahman was dismissed after 22 months. Policy-making was difficult and lawmakers are still faced with a backlog of dozens of laws.

But the need to offer the widest possible list of qualified candidates could outweigh such concerns, said the Center for Electoral Reform (CETRO)'s deputy executive director Hadar N. Gumay.

"In fact, if the president has House's majority support, this would lead to more collusion rather than checks and balances," Hadar said.

He added that instead of imposing conditions reflecting the candidates' political clout, the bill should impose tighter criteria for their personnel capabilities.

"Otherwise, while we may call it a direct presidential election, it will be no different from buying a cat in a sack," he said.

So far, the proposed criteria were too lenient as well as outdated, said University of Indonesia political analyst Arbi Sanit.

A presidential candidate must, among others things, be loyal to the state ideology Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution, and must not be a former member of the banned Communist party.

"It says nothing about leadership qualities," Arbi said.

Legislator Zain Bajeber, who heads the House's legislation committee, which arranges the debates on bills, said that the debate over the presidential elections bill could start late this month at the earliest, or during the recess starting on March 7.

"Once the special committee has finished the general elections bill, the same committee could start working on the presidential elections bill," he said.