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House may see record number of women
This year’s legislative elections will almost certainly see female candidates making up a record high 18 percent of the House of Representatives, the highest rate since the 13 percent recorded in 1987
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This year’s legislative elections will almost certainly see female candidates making up a record high 18 percent of the House of Representatives, the highest rate since the 13 percent recorded in 1987.
As of May 6, the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) had reported that 88 female legislative candidates had almost certainly secured a seat from the 560 contested in the April 9 elections.
Cetro gathered the data from 66 out of the 77 electorates nationwide.
“We predict that the number may still slightly increase as there are more electorates to be counted yet,” Cetro executive director Hadar Navis Gumay said Wednesday.
“The total number will probably not exceed 100 as the remaining electorates, such as Papua, are areas which have conservative approaches towards women,” he added.
Activist groups have long sought a ruling to ensure that a minimum 30 percent of legislative representatives are women, but such a law has not been introduced yet.
Hadar said even though these current figures were still below the desired 30 percent, the results would still be an achievement for advocates.
The highest number of women seated in the House was during the 1987-1992 period, when women occupied 65 seats, or 13 percent, in the House. This dropped to 9 percent in the 1999-2004 period before rising slightly to 11 percent during the 2004-2009 period.
Almost half of the 171 million eligible voters in Indonesia are women, and from the 12,000 candidates who contested a seat in the recent general elections, almost 35 percent were women.
Hadar said the Democratic Party (PD) had the highest number of successful female candidates with 29, followed by the Golkar Party with 15 candidates and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 14 candidates.
Some of the prominent women predicted to make it into the House are former president Megawati’s daughter, Puan Maharani, Surakarta Sultanate Princess Koes Moertiyah, former Miss Indonesia and incumbent House member Angelina Sondakh and two actresses, Rieke Diah Pitaloka and Nurul Arifin.
Rieke, who triumphed over Taufik Kiemas, Megawati’s husband, in the West Java electorate II, said, “We should not get carried away about this achievement”.
“The PDI-P is still fighting for the 30 percent quota for women in the House. Even though we didn’t make it this time we have still achieved something very good,” she said.
“However, quantity is not always in line with quality. If these female candidates still carry
with them a sense of inferiority in the face of the existing macho paradigm, then the record breaking percentage will not mean anything,” she added.
Rieke said the women, who are mainly new to politics, should be prepared for what is to come in the legislative sessions.
As of May 6, the General Elections Commission (KPU) had recorded more than 85 million legitimate votes from 63 electorates.
PD led the manual count with around 17.5 million votes (20.5 percent), followed by the Golkar Party with 12.6 million votes (14.8 percent) as PDI-P slipped to third place with 12.5 million votes (14.7 percent).
The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is in fourth place with around seven million votes (8.25 percent) while the National Mandate Party (PAN) remains in fifth place with 5.1 million votes (6 percent). (fmb)
