Reserved seats in the House show lack of democracy
Reserved seats in the House show lack of democracy
SEMARANG, Central Java (JP): If Indonesia really wants
democracy to prevail, no seats should be reserved for any group
in the House of Representatives, a political analyst says.
Riswandha Imawan, a lecturer in political science at Gadjah
Mada University, Yogyakarta, said every House member should be
elected by the people.
"They (House members) should be elected in a transparent
process," Riswandha told The Jakarta Post in an interview here
last week.
Riswandha was commenting on the government's plan to slash the
number of House seats reserved for the Armed Forces (ABRI) from
100 to 75, possibly from 1997.
The law currently guarantees ABRI, whose representatives do
not take part in general elections, 100 of the 500 seats in the
House of Representatives. The remaining 400 seats are contested by
the three political parties Golkar, the United Development Party
(PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) in elections.
ABRI's representation in the legislative body has come under
close scrutiny over the past several years, notably in relation
to the number of seats reserved, which is considerably higher
than the number of seats currently held by either the PPP (62) or
the PDI (56).
Riswandha said that the appointment of House members was a
"heritage" of the Dutch colonial era, when the Dutch governor
general was authorized to appoint people to represent the people
on the basis of ethnic group.
He said that Indonesia should do away with its appointment
tradition if it took seriously its claim that there is "no
difference" between the military and civilians as far as politics
is concerned.
ABRI argues that their representation in the House is vital to
the safeguarding of the state ideology, Pancasila, and the 1945
constitution.
Riswandha said the plan to have fewer military seats in the
House raised the hope that democracy would prevail and should be
welcomed on that basis.
"The plan suggests that the Indonesian government has
successfully passed a critical stage in its development," he
said.
Addressing a seminar last week, Gen. (ret) A.H. Nasution said
that he supported the idea that all House members should be
selected by the people.
Nasution is known as the creator of ABRI's "dual function",
according to which the Armed Forces plays a role in both defense
and politics.
He said that it was the people who, through consensus among
political organizations, asked the Armed Forces to be represented
in the House.
Political scientist Susilo Utomo told the Post that the
planned reduction in the number of ABRI seats provided an
opportunity for the political organizations, notably Golkar, to
increase their seats in the legislative body.
In practice, Susilo said, it was Golkar, which receives strong
backing from the bureaucracy and from ABRI, that stood the best
chance of grabbing most of the 25 seats that the Armed Forces
will relinquish.
Golkar currently dominates the House, with 282 seats. It is
chaired by Harmoko, whose other hat is Minister of Information,
who controls the local mass media.
"As long as the rules of the game don't change and law
enforcement remains weak, it would be difficult for the PDI and
the PPP to grab the floating seats," Susilo said.
However, the PPP and PDI could win more votes if Golkar made
political blunders that hurt its popularity ahead of the 1997
general election, Susilo said. (har/pan)