Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Monday's ruling by the Constitutional Court to allow independent candidates to run in local elections came as a shock to the country's major political parties, who greeted the move with both praise and caution.
Both political analysts and party members described the decision as a "milestone for democracy" on Tuesday, but warned of legal concerns in the absence of auxiliary regulations.
The verdict altered the 2004 Regional Administration Law, scrapping clauses that restricted candidacy in local elections to those registered with one or a group of parties. The court said the clauses restricted citizens from expressing their political rights.
Several people who had attempted to run as candidates in the Jakarta election endorsed the verdict, after being disappointed by the major political parties, many of which had changed candidates several times in the lead-up to the nomination period.
But analysts warned that any successful independent candidate would then have to battle with a legislative that consists of representatives of dozens of political parties and could well end up spending a lot of money.
"Our survey concluded discontent with parties and low level of trust was why 80 percent of the respondents threw their weight behind the idea of independent candidates," executive director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) Saiful Mujani said Tuesday.
The survey, held from July 1-20, covered 1,298 respondents in all 33 provinces.
The direct election of members to the Regional Representatives Council in 2004, Saiful said, was an example of public approval independent candidates and should be taken further.
He said it would be a challenge for winning independent candidates to release pro-public policy and use the fact that they were popularly voted in while facing local councils, which consist of party members.
"That's a situation where local councils can't arbitrarily debate an executive's policy when the people are behind it. People's votes are as a weapon useful as a shield, which is vitally considered by parties before they debate a policy," Saiful said.
Zulkifli Hasan, head of the National Mandate Party faction in the House, agreed that the ruling constituted a call for a thorough revamp of the internal management of parties.
Parties in the country, critics say, are authoritarian with only a few executives having a say and the right to recall dissenting party members.
Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, a Golkar lawmaker in House Commission II on local administration, said the ruling should be enacted in law to detail how independents would become candidates. "If there isn't a law soon, the ruling has the potential to stir disorder in the forthcoming local elections," he said.
Lukman Hakim Saifuddin of the United Development Party concurred, saying the court should have given a specific period for the House to amend the affected laws.
Currently, only Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam allows independent candidates to run for local election as stated in the 2006 Aceh governing law, which came up as the consequence of a 2005 peace deal between the central government and the Aceh rebels.