Jakarta – Three activists has filed for a judicial review with the Constitutional Court on Wednesday to demand it annul several articles in the 2003 law on presidential elections.

Political analyst and activist Fadjroel Rachman, together with Mariana Amiruddin, Executive Director of Jurnal Perempuan woman group, and Bob Febrian, Muhammadiyah Youth activist, claimed that they were fighting for the Indonesian citizens' right to vote for non-political party candidates.

"Three articles of the law state that the only way to become presidential candidates is through political party or political parties' coalition. This (mechanism) leaves not chance for citizens to vote for or run as independent candidates," said the activists' lawyer, Taufik Basari, as quoted by Kompas.com.

Fadjroel, who has declared his readiness to be an independent presidential candidate, said all citizens should be entitled to run for the 2009 presidential election without being nominated by a political party.

Mariana said allowing independent presidential candidates would create more opportunities for democratic solutions and maintaining sense of tolerance.

Constitutional Court had previously allowed independent candidates to run in local direct elections. (dre)