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Jakarta Post

Parties all set for legislative elections

Lucky number: A legislative candidate running in the 2019 election takes a ticket number for a Quran reading competence test at the Elections Independent Commission (KIP) in North Aceh, Aceh, on Wednesday

Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, July 19, 2018

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Parties all set for legislative elections

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ucky number: A legislative candidate running in the 2019 election takes a ticket number for a Quran reading competence test at the Elections Independent Commission (KIP) in North Aceh, Aceh, on Wednesday. Out of a total of 20 national and local political parties participating the 2019 election, only the Garuda Party did not register its legislative member candidates to sit in the Aceh Legislative Council (DPRD II) or legislative councils in cities and regencies in the province. (Antara/Rahmad)

After a flurry of activities on deadline day, all of the 16 political parties registered for the 2019 legislative elections managed to submit their prospective candidate lists to the General Elections Commission (KPU).

Despite registration being open since July 4 and repeated calls from the KPU for parties to register early, 15 out of 16 parties only submitted the necessary documents on Tuesday, many of them only completing the process a few hours before registration closed.

The United Development Party (PPP) cut it the closest, arriving at the KPU headquarters in Central Jakarta about 30 minutes before the midnight deadline.

As of Wednesday afternoon, 8,370 prospective House of Representative candidates had been registered on the KPU’s online Candidacy Information System (Silon).

“We finished the prospective candidate nomination process at midnight,” KPU head Arief Budiman told reporters on Wednesday. “After that, we will only check the documents that have already been submitted to the KPU.”

Only three parties have nominated fewer than the maximum 575 prospective House candidates: the Garuda Party, the Crescent Star Party (PBB) and the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI), which nominated 376, 411 and 176 candidates, respectively.

The KPU has moved the documents to Hotel Borobudur in Central Jakarta and will check them to ensure that each of the candidates meet the various administrative and legal criteria in order to run next year.

“We will verify whether or not the candidates have ever been convicted of corruption, whether their diplomas are fake or not, their place of residence, their police clearance letters, and so on,” KPU commissioner Ilham Saputra said.

After conducting the verification process, it will inform the parties of the results from July 19 to 21. The parties will then have from July 22 to 31 to amend their candidate lists.

The KPU’s regulation on the nomination of House and Regional Legislative Council member candidates had been a matter of controversy before it was eventually put into effect earlier this month.

Article 7 clause 1(h) of the regulation states that prospective legislative nominees “must not be a former drug dealing, child sexual assault or corruption convict”.

The House has been critical of the clause, claiming that it was in violation of the 2017 General Elections Law, which states that former convicts can still run as long as they “openly and honestly” announced their status to the public.

The regulation is currently the subject of a judicial review submitted by Gerindra Party politician and Jakarta Council Deputy Speaker Muhammad Taufik who was convicted of corruption 12 years ago.

Most parties claimed that none of the candidates on their lists violated the clause, with several, like newcomers the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) and the United Indonesia Party (Perindo) making it a particular point of pride.

The Golkar Party, on the other hand, admitted that two candidates it submitted have graft convictions on their records.

“We included two Golkar members who happened to have some trouble [with corruption],” Golkar executive Nusron Wahid said on Tuesday. He declined, however, to disclose the names of the former convicts.

The Berkarya Party has submitted chairman Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra as a legislative candidate in Papua, despite his checkered criminal history.

Tommy, the youngest son of former president Soeharto, was hit by a graft conviction in 2000, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court in 2001.

He was subsequently charged and convicted of ordering the murder of Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, the Supreme Court judge who had found him guilty of corruption, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

KPU commissioner Pramono Ubaid said the verification team would inspect the Supreme Court’s records before deciding whether Tommy met the requirements or not.

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