House sees record number of women

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 05/28/2009 11:16 AM  |  Headlines

The House of Representatives may be welcoming a record high of 102 female legislators, or around 18 percent of the total of 560 seats, but harder challenges await them.

The second highest number of women seated at the House was during the 1987-1992 period, when women occupied 65 seats, or 13 percent. This dropped to 9 percent in 1999-2004 before rising slightly to 11 percent from 2004-2009.

In this year’s legislative elections, some of the newly elected women legislators proved they were able to gain significant ground against their male adversaries, despite the adoption of a majority vote mechanism to determine House seats.

According to the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), the Democratic Party (PD) contributed the highest number of women at the legislative level, with women winning 37 of 150 available won by the party. The Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) had the second-highest number of women at the House, winning 20 out of the 95 seats.

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is the smallest contributor of female representatives, with only three out of 57 seats going to female party members.

Adjeng Ratna Suminar from the PD, and actress Rieke Diah Pitaloka from the PDI-P garnered more votes than Taufik Kiemas, an incumbent legislator and husband of the PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri. In the West II electoral district, Java Adjeng won more than 142,000 votes; Rieke gained more than 80,000 votes, while Taufik won 76,000 votes.

Actress Nurul Arifin from the Golkar Party, Megawati’s niece Puti Guntur Soekarno and her daughter Puan Maharani, both from the PDI-P, earned the highest number of votes in their respective electoral districts. Puan even managed to gain more votes than Hidayat Nur Wahid, the former PKS president who currently chairs the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR).

This year’s record breaking percentage is still short of the ideal 30 percent of female representation at the House, and the quality of these new legislators is still in doubt as most of them are inexperienced.

Ani Soetjipto, a political analyst from the University of Indonesia, said that even with a strong female representation at the House, the new legislators could not help improve women’s rights if they were not supported by adequate numbers of women at the executive and judicial levels.

“This country also needs a law that regulates a quota for women on the executive and judicative level. Bureaucratic reform, in terms of gender equality, needs to be pushed harder in order to ensure adequate female representation in all aspects of the government,” she said.

Ani said the elected female lawmakers would face harder challenges in carrying out their legislative duties.

She cited revisions of laws such as the Regional Autonomy Law, the Marriage Law, and the Health Law.

She said the Regional Autonomy Law should cater more toward public services on a local level, especially in terms of health services for women and the improvement of child nutrition.

“The Health Law should better encompass women’s issues. Reproductive health is one of the issues that requires full attention,” she said.

She added the new legislators should debate and clarify the legislative body’s stance on abortion. “Abortion is considered legal if it threatens the mother’s life. Legislators should make the definition of ‘threatens’, clear,” she said. (fmb)

Women of the House, 2009-2014

Female lawmakers    Legislative seats

1. Democratic Party           37                 150
2. PDI-P                          20                   95
3. Golkar                         17                 107
4. PKB                               7                  27
5. PAN                              6                   43
6. PPP                              5                   37
7. Gerindra                        4                   26
8. Hanura                          3                   18
9. PKS                               3                   57

Total                              102                 560       
Source: Cetro, based on data of the General Elections Commission

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