Rules for selection of legislative candidates

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The General Elections Commission (KPU) has drafted a guideline to be used by political parties contesting the 2004 polls in recruiting their legislative candidates.

The guideline, to be issued on Friday, says a legislative candidate must, among other things, have a minimum of a high school diploma or its equivalent, have no connection whatsoever with the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), not have been convicted of jail sentence of more than five years in duration, produce a clean bill of health, be registered as an eligible voter and be a member of a political party.

The major requirements refer to the election law.

Specifically, the KPU will require that a copy of a high school certificate must be authorized by relevant officials and the legislative candidate must make a solemn declaration that he or she was, "not involved in the aborted coup of 1965 or with the PKI."

The draft decree states that each party's central board of executives must inform the KPU of the nomination of their candidates for the House of Representatives, while the legislative candidates for the provincial or regency legislatures will be reported by the party's chapters.

KPU and its offices in provinces and regencies/municipalities will then carry out administrative and factual verification on the candidates.

While administrative screening will be aimed at checking required documents of the candidates, factual verification will include an examination of the mechanism to select the legislative candidates, including the 30 percent quota for female candidates recommended by the election law.

KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti highlighted on Thursday the article that allows KPU to check a party's internal mechanism to select its legislative candidates.

He said under that according to the election law and the KPU guidelines, legislative candidates should be nominated based on a democratic and open selection mechanism.

However, there might be cases when a leading candidate is placed below a little known candidate, thus sparking dispute within the party or between the two candidates.

"In such a case, it seems logical for KPU and the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) to check whether or not the candidates were selected based a democratic and open selection process," he said.

He admitted that the KPU could be accused of intervening with a party's internal affairs if it examined the party's selection mechanism.

"So we need parties' feedback on whether we can intervene in such a case, or the parties will resolve the case itself," he told reporters.

Ramlan also said the 30 percent quota for women should be clearly defined to accommodate the interest of women.

Separately, Togu Manurung of the Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI) called on the KPU to make sure that the paper producers participating in the ballot paper tender did not obtain their raw materials from illegal logging.

Togu said that five bidders -- PT Indah Kiat, PT Surabaya Agung, PT Adiprima Suraprinita, PT Kertas Leces and PT Kertas Kraft Aceh -- had problems with the origin of their wood supply as many have alleged that the supply comes from illegal logging activities.