Armando Siahaan, Jakarta – Lawmakers should settle their differences and reach a consensus on the draft of a revision of the 2007 Law on Election Organizers, a watchdog said on Friday.
The revision could potentially allow members of political parties to join election management bodies.
Erik Kurniawan, from the Indonesian Parliamentary Center, said a consensus was crucial to establishing a solid General Elections Commission (KPU) in time for national elections in 2014. He said new members should be selected next year instead of leaving it until close to the election.
"The KPU needs more than a year to prepare for the elections, like recruitment, publicizing the voting mechanism and adjusting to new rules stipulated in the revised law," Erik said. "Ideally the new KPU must be established three years before elections commences."
Current law stipulates the KPU for the 2014 elections can only be established a year beforehand. It is one of the issues being considered in the draft of the revision.
Lawmakers from House Commission II, which oversees home affairs, have failed to reach an agreement on the revision, with the dispute mainly revolving around allowing members of political parties to serve in bodies that supervise elections, like the KPU and the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu).
The current law says a political party member can only become a member of the election bodies five years after officially leaving the party.
Another disputed article deals with the appointment of the committee to select members of election bodies.
The revision aims to include the legislature in the process, whereas the government now has the full authority.
The idea to allow party members to sit on management bodies has been criticized by the KPU and Bawaslu and a string of political watchdogs, which argue that it could result in parties abusing the election process.
Commission II deputy chairman Teguh Juwarno, from the National Mandate Party (PAN), agreed that forming the new KPU by 2011 was crucial to having a stronger, better prepared body to deal with the 2014 elections.
"Commission II is committed to finalizing the revision of law this year or at the latest the beginning of 2011," Teguh said. "We're hoping to find a way out to settle the differences of opinion on the political party participation in KPU membership this month."
Teguh said the discussions were still at the commission level. "Voting will only take place once the draft gets to the plenary session," he said.
The commission has just a couple of weeks to decide on the draft before the House breaks for Idul Fitri, which falls on Sept. 10-11. The draft would then be taken to the legislative body, discussed with the government and then passed in a plenary session.
Erik said if the commission failed to make a decision before mid-September, it would be impossible to pass the bill by the end of the year. According to the schedule of Commission II, the draft should have been finalized and brought to the plenary session in July, so it could have been discussed with the government during August and September.
However, the commission was reportedly deadlocked over allowing political party members into the election bodies, including the KPU, Bawaslu and the Election Organizers Honorary Council (DKPP).
The members of the working committee formulating the draft had all agreed to eliminate the rule that political party members cannot join the KPU unless they have resigned from the party at least five years earlier.
But when it was brought up at the commission level for a decision, the Democratic Party and PAN had totally disagreed, leading to a stalemate.
"If the deadlock continues, the IPC fears that the target of setting up a new team by 2011 will not be met, and this would be risky," Erik said. As long as factions failed to reach a consensus, progress was impossible.