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span class="inline inline-left">All smiles: House of Representatives deputy speaker Pramono Anung (center), chairman of the House special committee for the deliberation of the election bill Arif Wibowo (left) and People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) faction secretary Saleh Husin share a light moment before speaking on contentious issues in relation to the bill on Thursday. Antara/Andika WahyuWith support from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP), the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has proposed that the 2014 legislative election apply the so-called closed-list system, to ensure parties nominate qualified candidates and to avoid the rampant money politics that plagued the last general election.

Lawmaker Arief Wibowo of the PDI-P faction, who chairs the House of Representatives’ special committee deliberating the bill, said the closed-list was in fact consistent with the Constitution, which stipulated that only political parties can contend in the legislative elections.

“This means that political parties have a monopoly in determining their candidates who will contest the legislative elections,” he said after a meeting between the special committee and the House leadership to discuss the four most crucial issues in the bill, here on Thursday.

He said the country should learn from the 1999 and 2004 legislative elections, which produced more qualified lawmakers than the current batch. “Despite their superior educational background, the current lawmakers produced by the open-list system in 2009 are less qualified and have brought more political troubles that have badly tarnished the House’s image.”

Gandjar Pranowo, another PDI-P lawmaker, criticized the open-list system, saying that it could be easily taken advantage of by profit-seeking politicians and brokers.

“It is a known fact that the winners in the 2009 election were those who had the money to buy votes while the candidates nominated by parties for their integrity, competence and strong political background lost the election because they had no money,” he said.

Gandjar said that in the early years in office, most of the current lawmakers had abused their power to recoup money that they had lost during the run-up to the election.

“The involvement of many lawmakers in graft cases has something to do with their efforts to arrive at the financial break-even point,” he said.

He also said the open-list system opened up an opportunity for candidates from the same party to compete with each other, while the Constitutional Court had not prepared a mechanism to settle electoral disputes stemming from legislative candidates nominated by the same party.

“We have proposed an ad-hoc trial in anticipation of such conflicts, but most factions rejected it,” he added.

Gandjar, however, said that the closed-list system had its own weakness as it gave leeway to party elites to use their clout in nominating candidates who they had close relations with.

“But we can prevent this by staging an internal convention to seek qualified candidates with the highest level of integrity,” he said.

Mardani, a member of the special committee from the PKS faction, said that his faction had opted to revert to the closed-list system in 2014 after rounds of political lobbying with the PDI-P, PPP and PKB factions. The New Order regime of president Soeharto was applied for more than 30 years.

“We are still struggling to convince other factions to accept the closed-list system as part of our efforts to uphold the parties’ supremacy, and come up with candidates in future elections.”

The Golkar Party and the Democratic Party, which both have a large number of members from the business community, have thrown their weight behind the open-list system.

Indonesian Civilized Circle (Lima) executive director Ray Rangkuty said the two systems had their own strengths and weaknesses, but the House should maintain the open-list system to produce qualified lawmakers.

“Political parties should be more selective by preparing a transparent mechanism to find qualified candidates. Campaigning should not be limited but all candidates are required to report their campaign funds to the General Elections Commission and they must be available for an independent audit and those who are found guilty of vote buying should be disqualified,” he said.