Jakarta – A public discussion on the general election bill in Jakarta on Wednesday turned into a heated debate between politicians and a political expert around the most appropriate and accountable system for the 2009 polls.

"I hope we will decide on just one electoral system for use in the coming general elections," House of Representatives member Agun Gunandjar Sudarsa said.

Then a member of the House special committee deliberating a package of political bills, Agun, criticized the law because it accommodated two electoral systems – the proportional electoral system used for the House, and the district electoral system used for the Regional Representatives Council.

The proportional electoral system focuses voter's selection on the parties, not individual candidates, allowing the winning parties to place whomever they choose in the House seats they win. This system was commonly used by the New Order regime under former president Soeharto. But the district electoral system enables people to vote directly for their favorite representative.

Agun said if the legislators decided to mix the electoral systems, just like they did in the 2003 general elections law, it would prolong the existing confusion around the current political practice.

One of the current political practices that needed revision, he said, was the existence of the multi-party system that resulted in a splinter of representation among parties in the House. Agun said he though this system created confusion for the current government.

He said the multi-party system created instability for the government because no party could achieve the needed votes in the House's decision making process.

"We must start to limit the existence of political parties because we want our government to look weak in every decision they make," Agun said. "There are too many political parties in the House that criticize decisions."

But Yusuf Lakaseng of the Reform Star Party said the existence of many political parties was actually a good thing because it would guarantee the government listened to the public.

He said he preferred to have many political parties, as implicitly required by the current law, because one political party could not represent all of society's aspirations.

"The current law brings benefits to a new political party like ours," Yusuf said. "I suspect the parties which proposed the amendment are those willing to extend their hegemony in this country's political life," he said.

House members are currently debating whether to limit the existence of political parties by raising the electoral threshold from the current three percent to five or seven percent per political party.

Ani Sucipto, a political researcher from the University of Indonesia, said she agreed with the existence of the proportional electoral system because it protected minority interests.

"We can't afford to lose... the struggle for women's rights as required by the district electoral system," she said. "We still need political parties to manage their representatives with a focus on the public's aspirations."