The current brouhaha over the establishment of a local political party in Aceh raises a more important question about the exercise of democracy and equality in Indonesia: Shouldn't other regions be allowed to form their own regional parties to contest national and regional elections?

This is a more interesting point to pursue as far as other regions are concerned. Let Jakarta and Aceh fight it out over the question of whether the former armed rebel group, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), can retain the acronym as the name of its new political party and the GAM flag as the party symbol.

This would be a good time to raise the question of local parties since the House of Representatives is currently deliberating the new law on political parties and other political legislation ahead of the 2009 national elections.

The way the law stands at the moment, all political parties must be "national", meaning they have to be headquartered in Jakarta; and to be able to contest elections, they have to have a sufficient number of branches in the provinces and regencies. The law does not ban local political parties, but it effectively precludes the emergence of any.

This issue is bound to come up sooner or later, and hopefully it will stir a healthy discussion, since the House must accommodate in the new law a provision allowing Aceh to have local parties, as mandated by the peace deal signed between the Indonesian government and GAM in Helsinki, Finland, in August 2005.

The most compelling argument why the law should allow local parties is not one of equal treatment (if Aceh can, so should other regions), but one of a healthier and more vibrant democracy.

All politics is local, as the saying goes. Local political parties are likely to better capture and represent local aspirations than some Jakarta-based parties. They know the area and they know the people, hence they know their needs better than anyone else. Allowing local parties is also consistent with the decentralization spirit of giving more power and say to the regions in managing their own affairs.

National parties have treated the regions simply as convenient support bases, places they turn to periodically every five years to renew their mandate, and then forget or ignore for another five years.

The party bosses in Jakarta have the final say on what the regional branches do, including the selection and appointment of representatives to sit in national and local legislatures. Very often, these positions go to people who live and work in Jakarta and who have little or no connection with the regions they represent. Most, if not all, of the existing political parties in Indonesia are not exactly grassroots, bottom-up mass-based organizations able to claim popular legitimacy from the regions.

As far as the regions are concerned, they have everything to gain and little to lose from having local parties. The biggest opposition, not surprisingly, will come from the Jakarta-based parties, and unfortunately, they are also the ones deliberating the new law on political parties. So, unless there is strong pressure from the regions, the House of Representatives is not likely to endorse the idea.

Jakarta would likely argue that allowing local political parties would undermine the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, the same argument it used for decades to deny the regions autonomy. This is the old politics of fear, exaggerating the threat to serve their own interests.

Regional political parties are no more a threat than parties formed on the basis of shared religion, ideology, race and class (labor parties). In fact, parties exploiting religious symbols are historically far more divisive and threatening to the fabric of a pluralist and unified Indonesia because they play straight into the emotions of the people.

The unitary republic has survived for 62 years, overcoming far worse threats, so the fear of local political parties can be nothing more than exaggeration and a ploy by politicians in Jakarta to deny the regions their democratic rights.

The presence of local political parties will only make democracy more vibrant in Indonesia's multiparty political system. It will also force the Jakarta-centrist parties to start paying serious attention to regional needs, lest their traditional supporters abandon them.

India is the best example where regional parties play an important and responsible role in looking after not only their respective regions, but also national interests through the coalition governments they join.

If the government can agree to Aceh having local parties, then the rule should be applied to other regions.

Denying this right to other regions will send the wrong message: That to get the serious attention of Jakarta, one has to engage in armed rebellion first. That would be a sure path to the destruction of the republic.