Camelia Pasandaran & Stephanie Tangkilisan – A Supreme Court ruling has ordered the General Elections Commission to reallocate seats in the House of Representatives using a formula that will significantly increase the presence of the country's three major political parties at the expense of minor parties, election observers said on Thursday.
Andi Nurpati, a member of the General Elections Commission (KPU), acknowledged on Thursday that this latest ruling in relation to the complex way seats are to be divided in the House could significantly change the results of the legislative elections, though the KPU would seek further clarification from the Supreme Court.
Andi, however, admitted that she had not yet read the court decision.
Refly Harun, a senior researcher from the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), was less circumspect, telling the Jakarta Globe on Thursday that the verdict would have "massive ramifications" for the makeup of the House.
According to information supplied by Cetro, a nongovernmental organization, the winner of the April 9 legislative elections, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, which secured 150 of the 560 seats in the House, would receive 180 seats under the new calculations.
The Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) headed by Prabowo Subianto, however, would see its number of seats slashed from 26 to just 10.
The Supreme Court made the ruling in response to a judicial review request filed by Zainal Ma'arif, a legislator from the Democratic Party.
The court annulled a KPU regulation pertaining to the second stage of vote counting after finding that the regulation violated the 2008 Law on Legislative Elections.
Lawmakers began lobbying factions in the House to revise the article on elected legislative candidates that was struck down by the Constitutional Court late last year.
That court ruling effectively annulled an article in the elections law that guaranteed legislative candidates a seat if they garnered 30 percent of the vote division number, also known as BPP.
The BPP, at that time, was calculated by dividing total votes by the number of seats in an electoral region. If candidates fell short of the 30 percent mark, the seats would be given to the top ranked candidates on a party's candidates list.
In annulling the article, the Constitutional Court replaced it with a majority vote system. The latest ruling by the Supreme Court means the KPU will have to allocate seats in strict accordance with the Law on Legislative Elections.
Harun said on Thursday that the only alternative left for the KPU and legislative candidates who would lose seats in the House would be to pursue further legal action at the Constitutional Court.
However, he added that such an action could lead to protracted legal disputes and bitter losing candidates and their political parties, particularly the smaller parties.