Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The open system to allocate legislative seats will not entirely shut out political parties from naming their representatives in legislatures.
A draft regulation being prepared by the General Elections Commission (KPU) will allow parties the right to determine seats for their winning candidates if two or more of them grab an equal number of votes in the upcoming elections.
The KPU is expected to issue a regulation this week to determine seat distributions for legislative candidates.
"We hope to issue the regulation by Wednesday at the latest. We are now discussing technical points, such as the validity of ballots, following the issuance of a perpu [regulation-in-lieu-of-law] to allow for double marking," KPU member Abdul Azis told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
The government issued the regulation-in-lieu-of-law last Thursday, to allow for double marking of ballots and to update the permanent voter list.
The Constitutional Court recently ruled that legislative seats would go directly to candidates who won the most votes.
"But if two or more candidates have an equal number of votes, while the party is eligible for only one seat, the elected candidates must be determined based on the size of their constituencies," Abdul said.
He added that should the constituencies be the same size, then the party would have to determine which candidate to award the seat to.
The legislative elections will take place on April 9, with about 12,000 candidates from 38 parties contesting 560 seats at the House of Representatives.
There are also hundreds of thousands of candidates vying for provincial, municipal and regency legislative seats across the country. The 2008 legislative elections law previously stipulated the seat distribution for the House of Representatives would be determined by the KPU, while that for provincial, municipal and regency level would be set by regional elections bodies (KPUDs).
But the Constitutional Court revoked that article to cut back on instances of cronyism. The law also states legislative seats must first be distributed to candidates who secure at least 30 percent of the original vote.
The rest of the seats are then allocated according to a list of permanent legislative candidates submitted by the political parties.
Abdul said the KPU was also discussing the issue of valid ballots in relation to the government's regulation-in-lieu-of-law on double marking. "We will elaborate on it in our regulation to avoid misunderstandings during the vote counts," he said.
The 2008 election law states voters are allowed to mark once on ballots. The KPU then decided this should be in the form of a checkbox.
But because many voters in trial polls chose to punch the ballot, the KPU issued Regulation No. 3/2009 on ballot marking that allowed voters to use a tick, cross or punch for their choice of party or candidate. The regulation only allowed voters to make one such mark, either for the party or candidate.
KPU chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said his office would soon update the permanent list of 170 million eligible voters, as requested by the government.
"We will invite officials from the KPUDs to Jakarta to verify their voter lists this week," he said in Bandung, West Java.