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mid poor performance and corruption allegations, lawmakers have demanded more seats at the House of Representatives, the increase of which will further burden taxpayers.

In the deliberation of the election bill, all factions at the House agreed to increase the number of legislative seats, from 560 to nearly 600, consequently requiring increased budget allocation for the legislative body.

The special committee tasked with the deliberation argued that the proposal for additional seats, which is stipulated in article 155 of the election bill, was necessary to accommodate more electoral districts.

There are 77 electoral districts nationwide, each of which has between three to six seats at the House. However, with North Kalimantan having become a province in 2012, it will be the 78th electoral district in the 2019 legislative election.

Lawmakers said the new province deserved representation in the legislative body, but they refused to reduce the seats of other regions, despite the fact that North Kalimantan was a new administrative territory derived from East Kalimantan.

This means that the population represented is the same although they are now divided into two provinces.

The House also claimed that some regions had asked for more legislative seats.

“That’s the consequence of the additional [administrative] region. We also need to give more seats to regions where the number of House seats is not representative of their local population, like East Java, Riau Islands and Madura,” National Awakening Party (PKB) lawmaker Lukman Edy, chairman of the special committee for the bill’s deliberation, said on Monday.

East Java and Madura are known for their large base of PKB supporters. “We can’t reduce the seats of the regions because that could create problems and spark protests from the regions,” Lukman added.

The two largest factions, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Golkar Party, have also pushed for extra seats for the new electoral district.

“It makes sense that with more electoral districts, there needs to be more seats at the House,” special committee member Erwin Moeslimin Singaruju of the PDI-P said.

Golkar supports an increase to 600 seats, claiming the number is ideal considering the country’s population.

The Gerindra Party said the number of seats should be increased to up to 570.

Meanwhile, the National Mandate Party (PAN) wants an increase to between 570 and 580 seats at the House, in addition to an increase in the minimum seats for each district to four, from three. Under the prevailing Election Law, each electoral district gets three to 10 seats.

Legislative watchdog the Indonesian Parliamentary Watch (Formappi) said the plan to put more legislators at the House was a “crazy idea” and would only benefit the interests of political parties. Moreover, more House members would lead to an increased budget, paving the way for lawmakers to propose numerous programs for “extra income”.

“There’s no urgency to add more legislators. We should reject such a political plan. More House members has nothing to do with boosting legislative performance,” Formappi researcher Lucius Karus said.

“Ideally, more House members should mean more aspirations heard from the public. But the problem is, the House is still more into accommodating the parties, not the people,” Lucius added.

Election watchdog Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) said the solution was not increasing the number of seats but changing the method of seat distribution.

“Many regions have too many representatives, while other regions don’t have enough. This is because seat distribution is still unfair,” Titi said.