Wisdom sought from House's decision on electoral system

JAKARTA (JP): They were united last November in rejecting the government-sponsored district representation voting system for the upcoming general election on June 7, favoring instead a proportional representation electoral system.

However, when it came to deciding the electoral districts for the voting -- whether at the regency level, the mayoralty level or the provincial level -- legislators split and stalled deliberations on the electoral bill in the House of Representatives.

Legislators from the four factions in the House -- the United Development Party (PPP), Golkar, the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) and the Armed Forces (ABRI) -- deliberating the electoral bill together with the government have reached an impasse over the issue.

Golkar -- backed by ABRI and the government -- has insisted it wants proportional representation at the regency level. PPP and PDI are arguing for the provincial level.

In the open session of its Special Committee on Monday, the House is expected to rule on the matter.

PPP legislator Zarkasih Nur said on Sunday that PPP would not shift its stance, and "will use any allowed legal means (in the House)" to push through its will.

Whether PPP will push through its will through voting or a walkout will be seen on Jan. 28, the day the political bills on elections, political parties and the status of the legislative bodies, are slated to be endorsed.

Golkar has employed a "reform" argument in the matter, saying that voting at the provincial level would be tantamount to maintaining the "status quo". Until the 1997's poll, which resulted in a landslide victory for Golkar, the elections had always been conducted at the provincial level.

Golkar also said it wanted constituents to avoid "buying a pig in a poke", because if polls were conducted at the provincial level constituents in the regency may not know who their eventual representatives would be.

Golkar said this was a matter of "accountability" and a show of "people's sovereignty".

Golkar legislator Yasril A. Baharuddin said on Friday that his faction actually believed district representation was ideal.

"But we are trying to be realistic and logical, and not jump directly to a system of district representation," he told The Jakarta Post.

PPP legislator Zarkasih Nur said on Sunday that "accountability" and "people's sovereignty", were not the issues.

Zarkasih said that factions had already agreed to stipulate in the electoral bill that legislative candidates would be determined by party chapters at the regency level -- not by the party's central board as in the present system.

According to Zarkasih, the issue here is "fairness" and how to create a level playing field for all parties contesting the election.

If proportional representation was conducted at the regency level, Golkar, with vast branches of support across the archipelago, would benefit the most, many analysts have said. This was the reason why a district representation voting system in which the electoral districts were regencies was rejected in the first place.

Apart from Golkar's financial resources and decades of power over the bureaucracy, analysts and representatives of new parties have also pointed to the increasing potential that the group could employ money politics given the prolonged economic crisis.

An executive of one new political party said officials should be banned from managing the Rp 17 trillion social safety net program at least 60 days before the election as a way to prevent vote buying.

"They could even win up to 80 percent of the total House seats," an observer predicted, referring to Golkar's resources.

"Why not? Although formally the bureaucracy has said it would be neutral, psychologically it's hard to do for those who have enjoyed the winner's spoils," the observer, who declined to be named, said.

If proportional representation was conducted at the regency level, Golkar said it would propose the figure of 420 electoral districts -- 210 allocated for Java and Bali, and 210 for the outer islands. Of the current House's 425 elected seats, 225 are from Java and Bali.

The PPP and the PDI have slammed Golkar's approach as tantamount to exercising a district representation system.

Golkar has answered its critics by asserting that its approach is completely different from district representation, as the latter adheres to the "winner take all" principle. In the "combined systems of proportional and district representation" the residual votes in the regency would be pooled nationally for proportional redistribution.

Assuming a 500-seat House, Golkar said the contesting political parties could have the remaining seats -- 80 including the number allocated for ABRI -- proportionally.

On Friday, the director general for regional autonomy at the Ministry of Home Affair, Ryaas Rasyid, who heads the government's team of seven experts who drafted the political bills, said the government would leave it to the House to decide whether proportional representation would be done at the provincial or regency level. (aan)