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he Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) praised the recently endorsed Elections Law, saying that the amended legislation carried provisions that could help improve the quality of future elections.

The elections watchdog also said that members of the House of Representatives had done a good job of expediting deliberations on the law.

“We appreciate the effort from lawmakers to endorse the bill on time. Ideally, an elections law should be ready at least two years before the general election takes place,” Perludem chairman Didik Supriyanto told The Jakarta Post.

Didik said that part of the problem during past elections was that the amended election law were approved by the House only months before the poll took place.

In the 2004 and 2009 general elections, for example, the House passed new election laws only 13 months before election day, allowing the General Elections Commission (KPU) limited time to prepare.

“We hope the KPU can start working without complaining that they don’t have enough time,” Didik said.

However, critics have called for a review of the amended law.

Regional Representatives Council (DPD) member I Wayan Sudirta from Bali encouraged his fellow lawmakers to file a judicial review on the grounds that the amended law violated regional autonomy.

Sudirta said that the mandatory 3.5 percent electoral threshold would drive smaller parties out of the nation’s political system.

Meanwhile, Arief Wibowo, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker who chaired the committee deliberating the amended law, said he was disappointed that the law adopted an open-list system, revised the electoral threshold and adopted the Hare system of a pure quota vote-counting mechanism.

Political analyst Burhanuddin Muhtadi said the amended law did not offer any progressive measures for Indonesia’s political system.

Separately, Perludem said that there was only little of substance in the amended law that the organization could complain about.

Perludem executive director Titi Anggraini said that the law allowed for more time for poll violation complaints to be heard by the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu).

“Although we criticized lawmakers for not following the Criminal Codes in determining the [reporting] period, we consider this a step in the right direction,” Titi said.

The KUHP allows for a six to 12 day grace period before an individual could file a complaint on criminal activities.

However, Perludem said that the law could be subject to further amendment in the future, especially on the issue of campaign financing.

Didik said that the amended law only regulated campaign financing for political parties and had no provisions for individually funded campaigns.