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House to raise support required for independent candidates
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People fill in forms to give support to Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama at a Teman Ahok Post in Kuningan City Mall on March 11. Ahok will run as an independent candidate in the 2017 Jakarta Gubernatorial Election. (Tempo/Dhemas Reviyanto)
T
span style="letter-spacing:0.1px">The House of Representatives plans to revise the Regional Election Law to raise the number of supporters needed for independent candidates to run in regional elections.
House Commission II overseeing home affairs said that the current requirements for an independent candidate to run for governor, mayor and regent posts must be raised from 6.5 percent to 10 percent from the final voters' list to 10 to 15 percent from the total population, or alternatively 15 to 20 percent of the final voters' list, commission chairman Rambe Kamarul Zaman said.
"This is in the framework of equality, we want to level the playing field with political parties," said the Golkar lawmaker as quoted by tempo.co on Tuesday.
Political party support has been raised to 20 percent of the voters' list, from the previous five percent, for regional elections. Therefore, lawmakers suggested that the criteria for independent candidates also be lifted, Rambe added.
Golkar expressed its support of the plan and said it was confident the public would also agree and not challenge the revision in the Constitutional Court.
In previous elections, independent candidates have needed to collect the identification cards of 6.5-10 percent of people on the voters’ list, in accordance with a decision made by the Constitutional Court (MK) in September 2015. The decision was made in response to complaints about the previous standards that required the same percentage of support, but from the total population.
Independent candidacy has been under the spotlight following the decision of incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama's decision to run in next year's gubernatorial elections without any political party affiliation.
Ahok said he did not have any problems with the proposal.
"If they propose 10 percent, then Teman Ahok [Friends of Ahok] has already collected 1 million IDs. If there are 7 million voters, then 10 percent would mean 700,000, if we have 1 million then we would have already surpassed it," Ahok said as quoted by tempo.
Friends of Ahok is a group of supporters that are collecting citizens' IDs to assist Ahok in his independent candidacy.
Ahok's independent candidacy has triggered debate about the lessening influence of political parties in elections, what has been termed "deparpolisasi".
Home Affairs Minister Tjahjo Kumolo has already reported the draft of the law revision to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo for the government to discuss. (liz/rin)
