Jakarta – The House of Representatives has agreed to adopt a parliamentary threshold system for political parties to obtain seats in the legislature following the 2009 elections.

However, lawmakers are still debating the percentage of the threshold for parties to be eligible to have representatives at the House.

"We are still discussing the percentage of the threshold, but right now it looks like it will be either 1.5 percent or 2 percent (of the House seats) for the 2009 elections," said legislator Andi Yuliani Paris with the House special committee deliberating the draft election law.

Under the current election law, a party that wins even one seat at the House is allowed to have a representative at the House, but it must merge with a major party or other small parties to establish a legislative faction.

The current law also applies an electoral threshold system, barring parties that won less than 3 percent of House seats in the 2004 elections from contesting the 2009 polls, unless they establish a new party.

For the 2014 general elections, Andi said the House would adopt a parliamentary threshold system. "The House has agreed to make 2 percent of House seats the parliamentary threshold for the 2014 elections," she said.

This system could have an impact on the total number of seats in the House, as some seats might be lost when parties fail to reach the threshold. "We are still discussing what to do with the remaining seats," said Andi.

She said the House could simply annul those seats or distribute them to other parties that met the threshold. "If we decide to distribute the remaining seats, we need to figure out how to do that," she said.

Andi said the House special committee was also discussing other electoral issues including the number of seats to be contested in each electoral area.

The committee said the new legislation would make it tougher for violators of election regulations. Ignatius Mulyono of the committee said the new election law would allow police or prosecutors to summon lawmakers accused of election crimes without presidential permission.

"Law enforcers will not need the president's consent to question lawmakers committing election-related crimes," he said.

Currently, state officials including lawmakers cannot be summoned for criminal questioning without presidential approval. The bill also requires law enforcers to resolve all election-related criminal complaints five days before the General Elections Commission releases poll results.

The House committee is also divided over the issue of legislative candidates who have been implicated in criminal acts.

"The Golkar Party wants the new legislation to stipulate that candidates must not be criminal suspects only when running for legislative seats. But the nine other factions in the House demand that candidates must never have been charged or jailed for crimes," said Andi.

Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, head of the special committee, said the team has finished deliberating 95 percent of the election bill. "All the factions are still lobbying each other over several issues and the House leaders will have a final lobbying with the government on Sunday night," he said.

The House is scheduled to pass the bill into law during a plenary session next Tuesday. (alf)