Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The preference of some political parties to use the majority vote as the basis for the selection of legislative candidates will prejudice the chances of female legislative candidates to win seats in the 2009 elections, a women's activist warned here Wednesday.
"How many votes can a female candidate obtain? Not more than 5,000 or 10,000 I reckon. If parties impose the majority vote system, female candidates will surely be defeated," said Ani W. Soetjipto, also a lecturer at the University of Indonesia's school of social and political studies.
Ani suggested that the current regulation on candidate selection based on party ranking should be retained.
She said the ideal open-list proportional representation system, which gives seats in accordance to the number of votes won, would not work in Indonesia as many parties here "had no roots in the community" and "were lacking in membership structure".
"We still need the semi-closed system because female contestants are still in need of protection," Ani said to the audience, mostly female legislative candidates, at the "Women in Preparation ahead of the 2009 Elections" seminar, organized by Suara Perempuan Indonesia (Indonesian Women Voices).
The 2008 Law on Legislative Elections states that a party candidate will earn a seat if he/she manages to reach a minimum 30 percent of the vote division number (BPP), which is calculated by dividing the number of votes with the number of legislative seats at stake in an electoral district.
If no candidate can reach the threshold, seats obtained by the party will be given to those ranking at the top of the party's list of candidates, the law says.
The use of the ranking ruling, said Ani, is actually a "victory" for women. The victory, however, is now being threatened with some political parties' intending to amend the legislative elections law.
Five factions at the House of Representatives – the National Mandate Party, the Golkar Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the Reform Star Party and the Democracy Pioneer Star Party – have reportedly proposed an additional article that reads as follows: "In case political parties impose the majority vote base in the selection of elected candidates, then the General Election Commission (KPU) shall conduct candidate selection based on political parties' internal mechanisms."
The majority vote base means that remaining seats will go to candidates earning more votes regardless of their ranking in the party lists.
Other critics, however, gave their support to the use of the majority vote mechanism, saying the party list ranking selection system will only facilitate continued domination of legislative bodies by party loyalists, regardless of whether or not they are popular with the public. Ani also warned against some parties' recruitment of celebrities as legislative candidates, regardless of their competency.
"Politics need certain skills and experience, and these artists' skills are not in the political field," she said.
She also told newcomer female contestants to focus on winning seats on local legislative councils, saying this would be more strategic for them, rather than competing at national level.