Jakarta – Fragile political coalitions may restrict opportunities to improve presidential governance in the next five years, experts and party members said.
"The effectiveness and efficiency of presidential governance will heavily depend on the process taking place during both the legislative and presidential elections.
However, as we have witnessed, there have been a lot of strange things going on during those processes," Charta Politika Indonesia executive director Bima Arya Sugiarto said during a political discussion in Jakarta on Monday.
"For example, the three presidential candidates officially announced their respective running mates at the very last minute. The decision to choose a running mate should have been made after a long process, not as a sudden thought. How can we expect to have a solid presidential team with such short-sighted decisions?" he said.
Despite parties having already officially signed coalition contracts, there have been reports of some elites blatantly contradicting their parties' official stance.
"I saw the flags of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP) during the presidential candidacy declaration of Megawati Sukarnoputri from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) at Bantargebang on Sunday," he said.
"PAN and the PPP have signed a coalition agreement with the Democratic Party (PD) to support President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) in the election. What's the meaning of those flags at his rival's declaration?"
The coalition comprising of the PAN, the PPP, the PD, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the National Awakening Party (PKB) are vying for around 45 percent of seats at the House of Representatives.
However, Bima said considering the lack of discipline among the parties and various political stances, such a majority would be largely ineffective.
"Within each party, there are separate factions with different interests. So, having a majority advantage in the House will be virtually useless, unless the parties are able to improve the discipline of their own elite," he said.
Basic changes were essential in order to improve the efficiency of the future government, Bima said.
"We need to improve the power of both the constitution and legislative body. My suggestion is to reduce the number of parties within the House."
"We can do that by increasing the current parliamentary threshold to 5 percent from 2.5 percent. Such an increase will result in the House only consisting of five to six parties. Those numbers are perfect for presidential governance," he said.
A PDI-P executive, Budiman Sudjatmiko, told the panel discussion that a future president would also need the power to "veto" any regulation aiming to increase the government's bargaining power against the House.
"Countries in South America have successfully applied such mechanisms within their presidential governance, but we would need to set limits to manage the usage of such a power," he said. (hdt)