Presidential elections bill may produce poor candidates, experts say

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.