Amid the growing number of legislators arrested for corruption allegations, House of Representatives Speaker Agung Laksono has accepted the public criticism against the legislative body for its poor performance.

Statistics show that the lawmakers have been unable to meet their own legislation targets year after year since taking office in 2004.

Up until today, as the House goes into a one-month recess, the lawmakers have passed only 119 bills, or just 40 percent of 284 bills they have to deliberate during their five-year term. This means they will face the Herculean job of debating 165 bills in the remaining 16 months of their tenure.

With the elections topping the national agenda, the House legislators will devote their resources to helping their respective parties win both the legislative and presidential elections and, to be honest, to retaining their seats.

Political bickering confronting the House and the executive power over both the fuel price hike and the anti-graft crusade targeting legislators will sap more energy from the lawmakers, further dashing people's hope of seeing urgent legislation passed and taking effect.

So what was the point of voting for them in 2004, in the election which the international community dubbed the most democratic polls the country has ever held?

Indonesia's transition to democracy took a new twist in 2004, when voters for the first time were given a chance to choose their representatives by name. In practice, however, the parties held the prerogative to select their preferred candidates to the House. The system has not changed for the 2009 election. This means the same story about the underachieving House is likely to drag on.

Some observers say the country's transitional period has moved too slowly, if not stagnated, partly because of the poor recruitment of political party members who were seated in the legislative bodies, both in the national and regional levels. The political parties tend to prefer loyalty over competence.

Deputy chairman of the House's legislation body, Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, blames the lack of competence in the law making process for the frequent challenges to the laws at the Constitutional Court. Many of the laws were declared flawed and needed revising, with some of them even requiring a complete overhaul.

The Court last ordered a revision of the 2008 Elections Law (No. 10/2008), which has allowed nine political parties failing to meet the electoral threshold to contest the 2009 polls. This was deemed a contradictio in terminis as the law itself clearly sets the threshold.

Court battles over disputed laws have sparked controversy over whether the Constitutional Court should share the legislative power with the House in a bid to curb the number of defective laws. The idea will deconstruct the division of power the country has upheld since its birth in 1945, but it needs to be understood as the public's loses hope in the lawmakers.

House leaders have also complained about the lack of budget for the law making process, despite it having nearly triple the funding from last year, from Rp 560 million to Rp 1.5 billion, plus another Rp 500 million for a bill passage.

Early this year, the House leaders paid each lawmaker Rp 39 million as an incentive to endorse bills in 2007. With each legislator receiving at least Rp 50 million in monthly take-home pay, financial constraints appear to be an unconvincing excuse for the House's failure to conduct its legislative jobs.

In some cases, the House needed years to endorse a bill, as in the case of the freedom of access to information draft law which was passed four years after its first reading. But there was a time when the House managed to work fast, as in the case of the Aceh administration bill which took the lawmakers only two weeks to pass.

The problem, it seems, rests more with the political will of the lawmakers than the budget or financial matters. That the House factions put their political advantages behind the public's or national interests is more evident in the bill deliberation process, which often involve backroom dealings.

Political motives are most visible in the House's support for formation of new regencies and provinces, despite the government's decision to put a halt to regional division moves. In fact, six out of 15 bills the House endorsed in the first semester of 2008 formalized the creation of new regencies. This excludes the House's approval of the revision of the 2001 law on special autonomy for Papua, which confirms the right of West Papua province to the special status.

The nine-month election campaign will provide voters ample time to learn the track records of the current lawmakers, most of whom will seek reelection. The more accessible the records to the public, the more unlikely the voters keep their faith in the lawmakers, who have wasted their mandate.