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)