Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Major political parties called on the House of Representatives on Friday to accelerate revision of the regional administration law, make local elections less expensive and minimize money politics.

Representatives of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Democratic Party (PD), Golkar Party and National Mandate Party (PAN) said their candidates would face financial problems unless Law No. 32/2004 on regional administration was revised and the culture of vote buying was changed.

Hasto Kristiyanto, the PDI-P's local election desk deputy chairman, said the party had won 58 of 94 local elections this year, including two governor's elections.

However, the PDI-P has also spent a lot of money to maintain voter loyalty in Central and East Java, he added. More than 240 local elections will be held in 2010.

"The party and its candidates had no other alternative except to spend vast sums to win the governor's elections in Riau Islands and Central Kalimantan and many the regency and mayoral elections in Riau and North Sumatra," he said.

"The elections may benefit the people financially... but [money politics] may not benefit democracy and can undermine the legitimacy of elections. Elected regional heads may abuse their power to recoup money that they spent during the election," Hasto told The Jakarta Post.

PDI-P created the local election desk to design election strategies and to cut down on election costs. "PDI-P will contest local elections only if it has a chance to win, as shown by surveys," Hasto said.

He said that in many regions, businessmen have invested in local elections and emerged as political brokers for party cadres as an attempt to gain financial advantages.

PDI-P has initiated political contracts with their candidates to secure their loyalties after Bibit Waluyo and Gamawan Fauzi, the governors of Central Java and West Sumatra, shifted to other parties.

Ade Komaruddin, secretary of the Golkar faction at the House, said the party's local election desk will make local elections cheaper.

"We want the local election draft law being deliberated by the House to limit candidates to either party cadres or popular independent candidates with political capital," he said.

PAN secretary-general Taufik Kurniawan said the local elections bill should be designed to help mature democracy in regions to minimize vote-buying.

"The dominance of money politics in local elections comes from the lack of maturity of the democracy process in the regions. If people think about democracy maturely, then money politics will have less influence," he said.