Unresolved issues in electoral bill to be voted on

Unresolved issues in electoral bill to be voted on

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With only four days remaining to resolve 21 contentious articles
in the electoral bill, all nine factions in the House of
Representatives have agreed to vote on the articles if they are
still deadlocked when they meet for the final time on Tuesday.

A number of legislators involved in the deliberation of the
bill expressed doubt that they would be able to arrive at a
consensus over the articles by Tuesday.

"A series of discussions between the leaders of political
parties and House factions have shown that they won't hesitate
about voting (on the articles)," said legislator Ali Masykur Musa
of the National Awakening Party at a press briefing here on
Thursday.

Ali, a member of the House special committee deliberating the
electoral bill, said the unresolved articles were related to the
electoral system.

The bill was to have been endorsed on Jan. 30 but was delayed
until Feb. 11, and delayed once more because of the numerous
unresolved issues.

The leaders of the General Elections Commission again warned
on Monday that further delays in the endorsement of the bill
would jeopardize preparations for the 2004 general election.

Zaenal Arifin, a House special committee member from the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), said
his party's intention to maintain its power to determine which
politicians would be seated in the House had sparked ongoing
arguments among other factions.

The stance of the PDI Perjuangan, chaired by President
Megawati Soekarnoputri, to maintain control over its
representatives in the House contradicts its approval of the
electoral system to be used in the 2004 elections.

The House factions have agreed to adopt a combination of a
proportional system and an open-list of candidates for the
elections. This system will enable voters to choose their
legislative candidates directly, replacing the old system under
which voters only were able to cast their ballots for political
parties.

The new system suggests the executive boards of parties can no
longer determine which politicians will fill the House seats.

Apart from the electoral system, the factions are still
debating a number of other issues, including the number of seats
in the House.

All of the factions have agreed to increase the number of
seats in the House from the current 500, but they remain split on
the final number. There are currently three choices being
floated: 525, 550 and 600.

The number of House seats must be increased because more
provinces have been established in the country.

Although the committee deliberating the electoral bill pledged
to endorse the bill on Feb. 18, this deadline has not been
approved by the House's steering committee, prompting doubt among
the public over how serious the House is about endorsing the
bill.

Of the 76 steering committee members, only 19 showed up for
Thursday's meeting, during which the date was to be set for the
plenary session to seek the House's approval of the electoral
bill.

Deputy House Speaker Tosari Widjaja said, however, that the
schedule for the bill's endorsement could be set during a House
leadership meeting in the next few days.

Separately, a caucus of women politicians has criticized the
course of the bill's deliberation, saying the debate over the
electoral system had distracted people's attention from gender
inequalities in politics.

Ignoring women leadership in politics was tantamount to
neglecting potential solutions to the problems faced by women and
children, the group said during a media conference.

The press briefing was attended by legislators Ida Fauziyah of
PKB and Marwah Daud Ibrahim of the Golkar Party.

They want the committee deliberating the electoral bill to
approve an article reserving 30 percent of House seats for women.

Currently, women legislators account for less than 10 percent
of the House.