Tough talks delay election bill debate

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

House of Representatives members began the deliberation of the election bill on Thursday, and immediately became involved in tense debates over a number of contentious issues that may cause a delay in the passage of the crucial draft law scheduled for December.

All major factions in the House have expressed their agreement to maintain a proportional system to elect members of legislative bodies, with some of them wishing some improvement to the old practice.

Ade Komaruddin of the Golkar Party and Samuel Koto of the National Mandate Party (PAN) said their factions would push for a direct proportional system, in which voters chose names instead of parties. The largest party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), insisted on keeping the old system, of only voting for the party, intact.

"This new method (individual names on the ballot) will maintain the balance of power between the President and the House, because it gives both legislators and executives equally strong legitimacy," Ade said.

He said the old system, in which legislators served their respective parties instead of their constituents, would degrade the political status of the House vis-a-vis the president, who would be elected directly by the people.

"The old system gave us only the party's support not the people's backing. Even the DPD members will be more powerful than us if we defended the old system," Ade said, referring to the Regional Representative Council which will represent regions in the People's Consultative Assembly.

A province will have four seats in the DPD, according to the amended Constitution. In a densely populated province like West Java, an elected DPD member represents seven million people.

PDI Perjuangan legislator Pramono Anung Wibowo said the old system was more practical and would take less time and money.

He said the direct proportional system had been tried among university students in Yogyakarta, and was proven inefficient.

"It took a student 30 minutes to cast his or her ballots. If a university student spent that long, how about ordinary people?" he said.

PDI Perjuangan and the rest of the factions are also at odds on whether a presidential candidate must be obligated to have a public debate to allow people to judge their competence.

Golkar, PAN and the National Awakening Party (PKB) said that the public debate was imperative, while PDI Perjuangan, which is chaired by President Megawati Soekarnoputri, rejected the proposal.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) has supported the plan to hold a public debate for presidential elections, but warned people against using the forum just to engage in mud-slinging.

As far as the voting schedule, Ade and Samuel said factions suggested simultaneous elections, in which people voted for members of legislative bodies and president/vice president all at once.

Ade said the arrangement would give little room for political parties to consolidate among themselves at the expense of a certain candidate.

He was referring to the political maneuvering by the Muslim- based parties known as the Axis Force in the 1999 presidential election which resulted in the defeat of Megawati, whose party had won the most votes a few months earlier in the legislative elections.

Separately, in a discussion on presidential elections, political observer Rizal Mallarangeng opposed a plan to require presidential candidates to take part in a public debate.

Rizal said as long as the rule of the game were observed, a public debate to test presidential candidates was not mandatory and nobody could push for it.

He said even a more established country like the United States did not require (by law) presidential candidates to take part in a nationally televised live public debate.

Rizal, who obtained his doctorate degree in Chicago, said that for presidential candidates in the U.S., public debates usually served as a forum to attract a large following without having to spend money.

"There are no sanctions imposed on candidates for missing the debate. They just waste an opportunity," Rizal said.

He said public debate was not the only way to judge a candidate's competence. "Public debate skills do not guarantee superb achievements," he added.