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ajor political parties have proposed an increase in the number of electoral districts or constituencies, in a move aimed at simplifying the electoral system, but analysts have warned the policy could encourage gerrymandering.

The polarizing proposal, which has been opposed by smaller parties, will likely further stall the ongoing deliberation on a revision of the general election law, as legislators were still bogged down in a debate about increasing the parliamentary threshold from the current 2.5 percent.

The Golkar Party, the country’s second-biggest political party based on legislative seats, is in the forefront of pushing the proposal. Priyo Budi Santoso, a Golkar executive who is also a House of Representatives deputy speaker, said that his party had proposed that the number of constituencies be raised to about 100 from the current 77.

“Expanding constituencies would reduce the size of each constituency, meaning that fewer legislative seats would be elected in each constituency. So we can expect that constituents would feel closer to their legislative candidates who would represent them at the House,” Priyo told The Jakarta Post.

Under the Golkar’s proposal, the number of House seats granted to each constituency would be reduced to three to seven from the current seven to 10 seats. “This is not to undermine minor parties,” Priyo said.

Golkar said it would intensify its move during the deliberation of the legislative elections bill set to begin during the next sitting period in September, Priyo added.

The Democratic Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the other two major parties at the House, backed the proposal. Unlike Golkar, the Democratic Party said the move was needed to reduce the number of parties at the House.

Small and medium parties are resisting the idea, saying they would try to block the proposal, which they claimed would only benefit major parties.

The United Development Party (PPP), which has the sixth-most seats at the House, has strongly opposed Golkar’s suggestion. “The current number of constituencies is ideal. The argument that more constituencies will make constituents closer to their representatives is irrelevant,” PPP secretary-general M. Romahurmuziy said.

Indonesia’s geographical characteristics do not suit a higher number of electoral districts, he said. “Any constituency in Papua is extremely large, would the constituents be closer should the constituency be split?” Romahurmuziy said.

Abdul Hakim of the government-allied Prosperous and Justice Party (PKS), the House’s fourth-largest party, said his party would do whatever it would take to block the proposal. “A simple political system with fewer political parties is good but it can not be done instantly.”

A political analyst from the Center for Electoral Reform, Hadar Nafiz Gumay, said the size of constituencies could be reduced but only for those that had more than eight legislative seats. “More constituencies with less than eight seats would tend to benefit bigger parties and the move to push that idea might be merely a cover-up of gerrymandering,” he said.

Hadar said that if the district reduction proposal was approved, bigger parties might politically abuse it to manipulate constituency boundaries to create partisan and incumbent-protected districts.

“If constituencies are really necessary to be redistricted, then it must be done by the General Elections Commission, which is relatively free of any political interests, not lawmakers,” he said.

Ganjar Pranowo of PDI-P said that he had felt that the constituency issue had been deliberately not touched upon at the onset of the deliberation. “It is indeed a hot topic and would have stalled the drafting of the bill if the debates were released before the deliberation. I think political parties would have expended their energy discussing the issue during the deliberation,” he said.

Ganjar said it was unlikely the bill would be endorsed by the end of 2011 as scheduled, given the many issues that could stall the deliberation of the bill.