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House to deliberate on three key issues before passing election bill
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Democracy: Incumbent gubernatorial candidates Basuki Tjahaja Purnama-Djarot Saiful Hidayat and their rivals Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno take a picture together following an election debate at Bidakara Hotel in Jakarta on April 12. (JP/Seto Wardhana.)
H
ouse of Representatives member Fandi Utomo has said members of the House’s election bill special committee will first deliberate on three crucial issues in the bill before they pass it into law.
The three key issues revolve around the voting system, legislative thresholds and the presidential threshold.
Fandi further said it was expected lawmakers could decide on the three key issues during a voting process within the special committee.
“I hope the deliberation on these three crucial issues will not end up in a House plenary session,” said the committee’s member from the Democratic Party faction on Friday.
Fandi said both government and House factions had agreed that the three issues should be resolved in the special committee. He said there would be no political bartering among House factions in working through the key issues.
“There will be certain aspects we can tolerate to make room for a possible consensus in the committee.”
Two out of 10 factions on the special committee want the election bill to adopt a closed-list system. Seven other factions want to keep the existing open-list system.
Differences of opinion also arise in relation to the legislative threshold, or the minimum requirement for a party to secure a House seat.
“Many factions want to maintain a legislative threshold of 3.5 percent but the government wants to raise it to 4.5 percent,” said Fandi.
On the presidential threshold, several factions want to lower it to zero percent from the existing 20 percent threshold. (dis/ebf)
