Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Minor parties have called for the electoral law to be changed to allow them the run in coalitions in the 2009 legislative election.
A meeting of 17 parties, all of which failed to garner enough votes to grab parliamentary seats in the 2004 election, concluded on the weekend with a call to allow joint party lists to be included on the ballot paper in time for the next legislative election.
Confederations of minor political parties have not been allowed to run on single lists for the legislature at any time since Indonesia's independence in 1945.
Adhie M. Massardi, the secretary general of the Regional Unity Party (PPD), said the idea of allowing coalitions was more effective than forcing losing parties to regularly change their identity to join elections.
The same 17 parties recently filed a judicial review with the Constitutional Court, challenging articles in the 2003 law on legislative elections requiring parties to have achieved a minimum threshold of votes to participate in elections.
Under the current law, a party can only run in a legislative election if it achieved at least 3 percent of the vote in the previous poll. "We've all agreed and we want to see a change, and we can make that change," Adhie was quoted as saying by news portal detik.com.
The executive director of the Indo Barometer survey institute, Mohammad Qodari, said confederation was the logical next step for these minor parties. However, "a coalition of a relatively large party and several smaller parties would work out better than a coalition of similarly small parties or of giant ones," he said.
Any proposed change to the law to allow confederations of minor parties to run together would likely face opposition from larger established parties.
Individual parties in any confederation would maintain their own mechanisms and structures, despite standing under one symbol and manifesto. Competition between coalition parties for seats would be expected to be fierce prior to an election.
An example of how a coalition would work is Malaysia's Barisan Nasional, which has ruled the country uninterrupted since independence. The coalition is currently home to 14 parties.
Major parties have recently tried to further cut down the number of political parties in Indonesia by proposing a higher electoral threshold and a reduction in the number of electoral districts.
In the 1999 election, 148 parties registered, 48 contested and 21 won seats. In 2004, a total of 261 registered, 24 were cleared and only 16 won seats.
The government and the House of Representatives are in the process of amending four laws on politics – on legislative elections, presidential elections, political parties and the structure and position of members of the legislature.
Amendments to the four are set to be completed by the end of the year to allow enough time for the General Elections Commission (KPU) to prepare for the 2009 election.