Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – Women are unlikely to win many legislative seats in next year's legislative elections as six parties have fallen short of the female representation quota and many others have stuck their female candidates at the bottom of their pecking orders.
The final list of legislative candidates published by the General Elections Commission (KPU) on Friday shows that six parties fall short of the minimum 30 percent quota for female candidates.
The 2007 legislative elections law requires each political party to grant at least 30 percent of its legislative candidate seats to women.
The six that fell short of the requirement are the National Mandate Party (PAN), with a 29 percent female representation and the United Development Party (PPP) with a 28 percent female representation.
The National Concerned People's Party (PPRN) has 26 percent, the Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) 29 percent, the My Republic Party 28 percent and the Patriotic Party 17 percent. However, KPU member Endang Sulastri said her office could not impose any sanctions on the six parties as the threshold was not mandated by the elections law.
"The KPU is only required to announce the parties that fail to meet the minimum quota of 30 percent to the public but there should be no sanctions imposed on them," she said.
The KPU published the final list Friday, naming 11,225 legislative candidates from 38 parties who will contest next year's legislative elections. The list was published in the Republika daily and was announced by state TV broadcaster TVRI.
Endang also said she was disappointed some parties had not ranked their female candidates high on their pecking orders to win seats at the House of Representatives. "Many of these parties also place their female hopefuls at the bottom of their lists," she said.
She said the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) had only included two female candidates in their top groups to secure seats. Some 215 of the PKS's nominees are female, while 221 of the PDI-P's 628 candidates are women.
"Nine parties have made less than 10 women level-one candidates," Endang said.
KPU data shows that of the total 11,225 legislative candidates, only 496 female nominees have been made level-one candidates and that 761 are level-two candidates.
The 30 percent female representation requirement was first introduced in the 2004 elections. However, only 62 women, or 11 percent of the winning candidates, secured House seats out of 550 on offer. Next year, the candidates will vie for 560 House seats.
The Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) said though many parties had complied with the legislative quota for women, there was little hope many would win seats as they were ranked so low in their parties' pecking orders.