Rizky Amelia – Political parties have met a requirement that women should account for at least 30 percent of their candidates in next year's legislative election, but some appear to be fudging the numbers, a watchdog says.

The group Concerned Citizens for the Indonesian Legislature (Formappi) said on Sunday that of the 6,576 candidates nominated by the 12 eligible parties, 2,434 of them, or 37 percent, were women.

Sebastian Salang, the Formappi executive director, said the National Democrat Party (NasDem), which will be contesting its maiden election in 2014, had the most female candidates, at nearly 40 percent, or 223 out of its 560 candidates. The Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI) had the least number of women in its list, with 186 female candidates.

Sebastian said that while on the whole the parties appeared to have complied with the 30 percent quota, some of the parties only appeared to have met the minimum, which also applies to each constituency, through circumvention.

He said this was apparent in the fact that at least three parties had nominated some of their female candidates to stand for multiple constituencies. These included nine candidates from the National Awakening Party (PKB), three from the Crescent Star Party (PBB) and one from the PKPI.

Sebastian said that fledgling parties like the PKPI and conservative Islamic ones like the PKB and the PBB traditionally tended not to appeal to women, thus the parties may have found it difficult to meet the quota at the constituency levels without the duplication.

He said the biggest offender was the PKB, which nominated eight of its female candidates for two constituencies each, and one for three constituencies.

"For the parties, this is a strategy to make it appear as though they've nominated a lot of women in order to fulfill the quota in the constituencies in question," Sebastian said.