Streamline electoral system, panel urges government

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 12/16/2006 1:54 PM

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A panel of political scientists proposed Friday a scheme for streamlining the electoral system to promote a healthier political situation in the country.

The panel, from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said in an academic draft on several political laws currently being drafted by the government, that to be eligible to nominate candidates in future presidential elections, political parties should be required to garner between 25 and 30 percent of the popular vote in general elections.

""Such a mechanism would likely produce two pairs of candidates to contest a one-off election,"" LIPI member Syamsuddin Haris said in a discussion on the draft.

He said increasing the electoral threshold for nominating presidential candidates would also help develop a healthy political system with a strong system of checks and balances.

""It will lead to the formation of two strong camps in the parliament, the governing coalition and the opposition,"" he said.

Currently, the law on presidential elections states that a political party or coalition of parties that garner 15 percent of the popular vote is allowed to nominate presidential candidates.

The 2003 law resulted in five pairs of candidates contesting the 2004 presidential election, with a winner being declared only after a run-off vote.

Another LIPI analyst, Ikrar Nusa Bakti, said an electoral threshold of 25 percent would force political parties into alliances.

""If we can't reduce the number of political parties to two, then at least we can force them into building coalitions,"" Ikrar said, adding that the current political arrangement was too cumbersome.

The LIPI team also proposed that political parties be required to formalize coalitions under the new law, to create stability and improve ethics in politics. It said the terms and conditions agreed upon by parties forming a coalition should be recorded in a state document that would be open to public scrutiny.

It also recommended that coalitions formed for a presidential election be required to remain intact for at least two elections.

""With these arrangements, political coalitions would no longer be a personal matter among politicians, but an official agreement under the law,"" Syamsuddin said.

The academic draft was created by the team from LIPI in cooperation with the Home Ministry, which is currently drafting new laws that would serve as the legal basis for legislative and presidential elections beginning in 2009.

The ministry took over the drafting of the new laws after the House of Representatives gave up on the task.

Senior LIPI analyst Maswadi Rauf said legal reform of the electoral system was vital, given the current confusion in the political system.

""Our political system is illogical. Candidates who challenge the incumbent president should come from outside the government. But in the last election we saw an incumbent competing against her own minister. What can we get from such a contest?"" Maswadi said, referring to the bitter contest that pitted former president Megawati Soekarnoputri against her former top security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

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