T

he revision to the 2007 election law should address common problems that arise during elections, observers say, reminding lawmakers not to spend too much energy debating the contentious plan to increase the legislative threshold.

Center for Electoral Reform (CETRO) senior researcher Refly Harun told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the lawmakers should address more substantial problems such as electoral frauds and technical problems such as the distribution of ballots instead of stalling on the threshold or the size and number of constituencies.

“Those were the problems in our last general election, not the legislative threshold,” he said, adding that the lawmakers had little time to complete the review of the law as the preparations for the 2014 elections began in April next year.

He pointed out that the problem had been clearly reflected during the 2009 election. “We have heard many reports about alleged fraud during the last elections. For instance, we heard that the regional general elections commission [KPU] offered additional votes for candidates in exchange for certain rewards,” Refly said.

He said that a convoluted election system has prompted fraud, while organizer’s lack of integrity has fueled problems as well.

He added that there was also “unintentional fraud” or mistakes due to the complex and convoluted electoral system. “These kinds of problems are the one that we should address first before treading further into legislative threshold or polling region matters.”

A public policy analyst, Nico Harjanto, supported the idea that the House of Representatives should focus more on substantial matters that are based on long-term national interests rather than political interests. “The electoral law revision should improve the quality of people’s representation, not bolster the coalition or consolidation of power interests.”

Indonesia has held three elections in the reform era — 1999, 2004 and 2009 — though critics claim that the elections were plagued by fraud and mismanagement, especially in the matter of logistics and voter registration. For the upcoming 2014 election, the House has been discussing an initiative to revise the Elections Law.

“Now, if we look at the House’s discussion on revising the Elections Law, the discussions were centered on the threshold or polling regions, which I think are more in the political parties’s interests rather than real electoral problems,” Refly said.

The discussions on legislative threshold have been on going. Most prominent political parties want it to be raised above 2.5 percent, while smaller parties want it lowered.

Applying a 2.5 percent threshold, such as in the 2009 election, would mean that parties failing to gain more than 2.5 percent of the votes would not get a seat in the People’s Representative Council.

Refly said that according to the law, by April 2012, the country should have started initial electoral phases including political party registration.

“If the electoral law revision has not been completed yet by April, then it would stagger the election’s preparation, he said. (rpt)