Jakarta – With the next House of Representatives set to see even more female legislators, hopes are being raised that they can perform much better than their male counterparts and improve the House's image in the public eye.

Ribka Tjiptaning, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and currently the only female heading a commission at the House, told The Jakarta Post Wednesday she looked forward to seeing a better House now that it had more female members.

"After years of working with the women on my commission, I find that women have more perseverance and are more diligent at work," she said.

Her party has managed to bring in dozens of women to serve as new House members through the recent legislative election, including Puan Maharani, the daughter of PDI-P's chief patron Megawati Soekarnoputri, and Rieke Diah Pitaloka, a soap opera actress and activist. Ribka and another legislator from the PDI-P, Eva Kusuma Sundari, were re-elected.

Around 17 percent of the 560 newly elected House members are female. The current House only has 11 percent of female legislators out of its 550 members.

Lili Romli, a political expert from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, told the Post female politicians were better than male when it came to matters of morality.

"I haven't heard of any of them getting involved in corruption, for example," he said, adding that he agreed women were more diligent than men.

"But, of course, it's not enough just to be diligent and show up at every meeting, they need to demonstrate they have the capability to play an important role in decision making," he added.

Lili said he remained skeptical, nevertheless, because he saw that many of the newly elected female legislators had backgrounds that could do little to ensure they could work optimally in the legislature.

"The new House will be filled with many celebrities and the wives or daughters of regional leaders," he said. He feared such members were inexperienced and not sensitive to gender issues and urged them to have the courage to learn quickly.

"They should not wait until they sit in office, the duties of a House member are tough," he said.

Lili acknowledged, however, that some new female legislators were of a higher standard.

"I hope Nurul Arifin, Rieke and Puan can play bigger roles in the next House of Representatives," he said. Nurul, widely known as she is a soap opera actress, is currently a House member for the Golkar Party.

With the surge in the number of female legislators at the House, many are expecting them to prevent the passing of laws that criminalize women. However, Ribka said there was no guarantee of that.

"Yes, House members are elected by the people, but once the elected members get into office, many stop fighting for the people's needs. Instead they fight for what their respective parties need," she added.

Lili said the new female legislators were facing great challenges. "They have to prove themselves to the people who elected them," he added. (adh)