"Women should come up with something," once declared Nova Riyanti Yusuf - a 32-year-old legislator who holds a doctorate decree in mental health from the University of Indonesia - in an effort to inspire women and female artists to prioritize education as promoted by the late women's hero RA Kartini.

Nova, also a novelist known as Noriyo, was elected as a House of Representatives member at the April 9 legislative elections, representing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.

House members for the 2009-2014 period will be sworn in on Oct. 1 for the 2009-2014 period.

Nova is among a high percentage of House members that have university degrees from bachelor to doctorate level and were elected through the semi-district election system.

Political observers said that a better educational background might help improve House members' performance in making public policies.

Research by the Indonesian Parliamentary Watch (Formappi) showed that 91 percent of 560 new House legislators are university graduates, a 10 percent improvement from the current term.

It said that 34 percent of new legislators held doctorates and some 11 percent of the lawmakers were academicians.

"It is the highest level of university degree-educated legislators in the House's history. Hopefully they can be better than past legislators," Formappi executive director Sebastian Salang told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The research said there are 76 percent of the next House's legislators were new.

"Our assumption is that young and well-educated legislators will be more energetic and pro-change, with better productivity," Sebastian said.

"But there is no guarantee yet that new legislators would abstain from corrupt practices as many factors could be come up in the working period."

Legislators have long been under pressure due the House's poor performance in dealing with its main task of controlling the government.

A number of lawmakers have been sent to prison for their involvement in graft cases.

Data from the House secretariat said that the legislative body only managed to pass 166 bills into laws as of June 2009, out of their targeted 284 laws.

Just a month before the end of its term, the House passed several bills into laws, prompting protests from activists that were concerned that the laws were low quality.

Government officials often grumbled over the poor quality of questions raised by legislators during hearing sessions.

Many legislators often signed the plenary sessions' attendance forms without participating further.

Executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), Hadar N Gumay, hoped that a better educational background would significantly help legislators' performance in the future.

"But we still need to find out about their track record, such as in political organizations, to ensure their performance."

The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker, Hidayat Nur Wahid, was also upbeat that legislators could use their potential and capabilities as young and well-educated legislators to improve the House's performance.

The increase of female legislators to 17 percent from the current 11 percent raised hopes for the improved quality of the legislators.

Newly elected Rieke Diah Pitaloka from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) pledged Tuesday that she would fight to ensure that policies are made and budgets are used to improve the quality and competency of women.

"The perspective of gender should automatically be present in every female politician, so when she supports a policy she will never look at it through a man's eye."

She added that she looked forward to revising the laws that criminalized women.

Meanwhile, the Golkar Party secretary-general, Rully Chairul, told the Post that many of the elected female candidates from his party were senior and well-educated.

"We have Nurul Arifin, who is very bright; we also have an elected candidate who is active in the Dharma Pertiwi Association of Army Soldiers' Wives, a senior politician and even a professional engineer," he said.

Rully ensured that Golkar's female legislators for the next term were highly competent.

New female Golkar legislators, he said, constituted almost 25 percent of the total of 106 elected candidates from the party.

Separately, the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) secretary-general, Ahmad Muzani, said although his party only managed to bring in 5 female legislators from a total of 30, they all have their own strengths to offer to the House.

"I hope they will be put in different commissions of the House so female legislators from Gerindra can contribute in as many aspects as possible." (adh)

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