Emmy Fitri – In response to the simple question of how they would rate the performance of the 550 lawmakers who served the country over the past five years, political analysts and political novices alike immediately give the same response – a big thumbs down.

The 2004-09 batch of lawmakers that officially ended their terms on Wednesday has been little more than a cast of colorful characters in a five-year display of what many consider to be plain incompetence exacerbated by blatant corruption.

"They simply failed," said Sulastio, an analyst from nongovernmental organization Indonesian Parliamentary Center.

Rustiono M, a teacher at an East Jakarta high school, echoed his view. "Only a few of them really represented the people's interests," he said.

The House of Representatives has three main functions: to produce laws, to monitor the executive branch of government and to produce the state budget. In the wake of the post-1998 reform movement, the legislature should have shifted its role from being the New Order government's rubber stamp to a strong political power house that keeps the balance of power among the three branches of government in check.

But the legislators don't appear to have taken this new role seriously. Bickering and grandstanding, it seems, occupied most of the legislators' time, as more news stories on legislative scandals seemed to have been reported in the past five years than actual laws passed.

"The legislators mostly failed to achieve the legislation targets they set. I think they were overly confident when setting targets that they couldn't fulfil," Sulastio said.

The House has only managed to pass 193 bills of the targeted 284, or 68 percent. The failure to hit its target is even more disappointing given that the 2004-09 legislative period was allocated a significant increase in budget.

After the 2004 elections, the government, in an attempt to boost the quality of their work, set aside Rp 6.54 trillion ($680.2 million), or Rp 1.3 trillion more than the previous period – to boost the House's communications, expert staff and operations budget.

"Our legislators use more money from the state compared to legislators in the US and Australia who are allocated less than 1 percent of their respective state budgets. Here, their budget is nearly 2 percent," he said.

"We haven't even talked about the quality of the legislation that they gave us," Sulastio said. "The fact the public strongly reacted to some legislation, as shown in the number of laws brought by the public to be reviewed [in court], is proof that public participation is particularly low or nonexistent during the drafting process."

The 2004-09 House will be known for the number of challenges filed in the Constitutional Court against the laws it passed. The Legislative Election Law alone, for instance, has had 10 judicial review requests filed against it.

House Speaker Agung Laksono had set up a Work Improvement Team, a kind of resource and development center, which was expected to provide assessment and evaluation for the legislators.

But unlike in other countries, Sulastio said, the team did not function as expected, partly because members had to spend most of their time in legislation hearings.

"Isn't it sad that one legislator can sit on eight special committees? How could he work his utmost if he has to divide his time and energy in such a way," Sulastio said.

"With all the improvement and increased budget, we pinned so much hope on these legislators. But alas, they just didn't meet our expectations," he said. "Image wise, there is also nothing to be proud of as some members were implicated in graft cases," Sulastio said.

Indonesia Corruption Watch said around 40 House members have been implicated in graft cases, and most of them are from major parties, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Golkar Party and the National Mandate Party (PAN).

Rustiono, the high school teacher, said he believed he was not the only one disappointed with legislators' performance, which didn't match up with promises made during election campaigns.

"The corruption cases allegedly committed by the lawmakers are saddening. In addition, I rarely heard anything about defending of public interests," he said. "They were busy bickering when the government raised the fuel price, for instance. They tend to be reactive when it comes to high-profile cases."

Indria Samego, a political analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), called for the drafting of clear guidelines for future lawmakers so the House could function more efficiently.

Legislators from the 2004-09 term "have taken the easiest path, involving themselves in practical politics to save their seats," he said. He added that, to be fair, the outgoing House had managed to contribute something to the development country's democracy.

"The poor performance of those legislators should be an eye opener for the public. Now they can see for themselves how the politicians they voted for in 1999 performed. They must be more careful and get better acquainted with candidates next time. In a way, it's a good political education for the public if media present a thorough look at" the legislators, he said.

Perhaps, that is why less than one-third of the House members have been re-elected to serve in the next legislature.