Alfian, Jakarta – The requirements for independent candidates in regional elections are illogical and could lead to corruption, activists said Sunday.
The Civil Society Coalition, comprising of activists from 10 organizations, issued a joint statement to reject the requirements of independent candidates in regional elections, which were drawn up by the House of Representatives.
"The requirements are illogical and have no empirical base in the world history of democracy," Civil Circle for Indonesia (LIMA) director Ray Rangkuti said, reading the statement.
In Indonesia, independent candidates have only run in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, during its last elections earlier this year, based on the law on the province's special autonomy.
Currently the House is revising the 2004 Regional Administration Law. The revised draft rules that independent candidates must submit documents reflecting the number of their supporters; the amount based, on population density, within a range of 3 percent to 15 percent of the total number of citizens in a given area.
This means independent candidates must collect between 300,000 to 1,300,000 statements of support. Independent candidates for mayor and regent would have to gather between 15,000 and 90,000 supporters.
This large number would be difficult to verify, said Hadar N. Gumay, executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro).
"That requirement is almost impossible and never practiced in other countries," said Hadar. He added this requirement showed that the politicians in the legislature were actually against the new model in selecting regional leaders.
"The political parties, with their authority to formulate the regulation, do not want independent candidates. They do not want competitors other than their endorsed candidates," said Hadar.
The Aceh polls resulted in the victories of a number of candidates running on independent tickets, including current Governor Irwandi Yusuf.
Data from Cetro show that independent candidates for the latest gubernatorial election in Illinois, the United States, for instance, only needed to collect signatures from 25,000 of 12,831,970 registered voters.
Hadar said a rational number for statements of support in Indonesia's regional elections would be between 1 percent and 3 percent.
"That number already demonstrates that the independent candidates have potential voters," said Hadar.
The revised draft of the bill on regional administration also requires independent candidates to pay a deposit. Hadar said most countries require candidates to gain at least 10 percent of the vote to be able to get their deposits back.
Hadar said the requirements in this area were also too tough. The revised draft mentions a deposit of at least Rp 200 million for independent candidates in gubernatorial elections, and a minimum 25 percent of the vote is required for candidates to gain their deposits back.
Such steep requirements will discourage the public from taking part in regional elections as independent candidates, given the potential large losses involved, he said.
"For example in the Aceh (gubernatorial) elections, it was only the winner who could obtain more than 25 percent of the vote," Hadar said.
He suggested that the deposit requirement was not suitable for the country. The mechanism, he said, "could create a network for corruption".