Jakarta – The upcoming elections will see millions of wasted votes because many small and new parties are likely to fail in their bids to meet the new electoral threshold.

Hadar N. Gumay, executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), said Thursday that wasted votes would exceed the 19 million votes squandered in the 2004 polls, when only 24 parties were contesting the elections.

"I think the number of wasted votes will rise sharply due to the new electoral threshold mechanism," he said.

The threshold system requires that a party win at least 2.5 percent of the 550 seats up for grabs at the House of Representatives to ensure representation. Parties that fail to attain the 2.5 percent threshold will lose all their votes, even if some of their individual candidates win in their respective constituencies.

A total of 38 national parties and six local parties will contest the April 9 elections. The Constitutional Court previously turned down a motion for a judicial review of the threshold.

Members of small and new parties, however, have also expressed their concern about the wasted votes.

"The government should have thought about the implications before they issued the regulation, because we predicted there would be many wasted votes in this election," said Restianto, secretary-general of the Patriot Party, one of the smaller parties contesting this year's polls.

He added the regulation would disappoint voters if their favored parties failed to win House seats.

Restianto estimated the number of wasted votes could reach more than 20 million. "This system is not fair, and it has frightened the smaller parties," he claimed.

Ericson Hutabarat, a legislative candidate from the Labor Party, said many small and new parties would get votes that would ultimately turn out to be useless. In fact, those small and minor parties will gain more votes during this election, he said.

"There is a significant decline in the popularity ratings of several big parties, based on recent surveys, meaning many voters have changed their minds about their favorite party, and we have the chance to net their votes," Ericson said.

He expressed disappointment over the electoral threshold system, saying the government had "manipulated the public" through the use of this regulation.

"The government is inconsistent," he pointed out. "It wants to limit the number of parties in the country, but it forgets about regulations that allow people to establish parties."

Cetro's Hadar said the electoral threshold system was not entirely without its benefits, but added it would be better if the number of wasted votes could be kept to a minimum.

"Even though the mechanism will restrict the number of parties and the number of legislators, it will teach people to be smart in selecting parties," he said. (naf)