Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Departing from public expectations, the 2009 legislative election will likely grant more seats to political parties' loyalists than people's representatives.

Factions at the House of Representatives deliberating the legislative election bill are setting the vote division number (BPP) for a candidate to win a legislative seat at between 25 percent and 35 percent. BPP is calculated by dividing the number of votes with the number of legislative seats at stake in an electoral district.

Hadar Gumay of the Center for Electoral Reform (CETRO) told a discussion on the bill here Friday that the higher the percentage of the BPP, the fewer the number of legislators that would be directly elected by people. "Lowering the rate would, however, mean that more legislative seats would go to candidates ranked on top, or those who are the parties' loyalists," he said.

Hadar said if the 25 percent BPP was agreed upon, only 155 legislators, or 28.2 percent of the House's 550 members, would be directly elected by people.

Deputy head of the House's special committee deliberating the legislative election bill, Yasonna Laoly, said that factions at the House were now divided between those proposing a 25 percent BPP and those proposing 35 percent. Yasonna said legislators would likely seek a compromise of 30 percent.

Political expert from the National Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Syamsuddin Haris, suggested the seats be reserved primarily for candidates who won the most votes. If that was not possible, then a lower BPP should be applied. Syamsuddin said a 25 percent BPP was "nonsense".

Former member of the General Elections Commission (KPU), Valina Singka Subekti, said candidates should be elected based on BPP and not by ranking from parties, so as to motivate voters to know their representative candidates better.

Hadar and Syamsuddin, as well as Valina, also agreed on preserving the number of electoral districts. There were 69 electoral districts in the 2004 legislative election, with each district having between three and 12 seats on offer.

Yasonna said while most factions preferred to preserve the seats allocation in an election district, the National Awakening Party insisted the seats allocation be reduced to between three and 10, while the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle wanted between three and seven. The smaller number of seats allocated for each district, the greater the number of electoral districts.

Hadar said more electoral districts would benefit big parties the most thanks to their influence in the districts, but would be detrimental to small, medium-sized and new parties.

Syamsuddin and Valina warned the legislators deliberating the bill of the impacts of adding more electoral districts on fairness for smaller parties.

Both said extra electoral districts would mean more jobs for KPU members while the coming legislative election was drawing near. The KPU has scheduled the election to take place in April, 2009. Yasonna said the bill's deliberation was expected to conclude late February.