Armando Siahaan, Jakarta – Major political parties are taking advantage of their position at the House of Representatives to draft laws that would limit the participation of new and smaller parties, analysts said on Sunday.

"Political parties currently in power at the House are creating regulations that would secure their own interests," said Tommy Legowo, of the Concerned Citizens for the Indonesian Legislature (Formappi). "These parties want to make sure there's less competition."

He was referring to at least two bills currently being deliberated at the House and that are aimed at tightening the requirements for parties seeking to participate in the general elections and enter the House.

The House Legislation Body is finalizing a draft amendment of the 2008 Political Parties Law. The government and the House has not yet reached a final consensus on the draft, which essentially outlines stricter requirements for the establishment of a political party.

The initial House-backed draft stipulates that any new party must have at least 1,000 co-founders and have initial cash assets of Rp 1 billion.

The government is seeking a lower number for founding members, at 625, but is proposing that they be spread across three-quarters of the country's 33 provinces. Under the original law, it takes only 50 co-founders and Rp 100 million to establish a political party.

"The current law is already quite moderate, it accommodates many sides," Tommy said. "But increasing the number of founders to 1,000 is just a way of ensuring less competition for the big parties."

Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi previously said that stricter requirements would be in line with the broader effort of strengthening the presidency, which has frequently been fragmented by the large number of parties at the House.

At the same time, legislators are working on an amendment to the 2008 Legislative Elections Law, which includes a proposal to increase the minimum requirement number of total votes a party must win to be represented in the House, also known as the legislative threshold.

The current threshold, 2.5 percent, has managed to limit the number of parties in the parliament to nine. A proposed doubling is expected to further cut the number of parties.

Smaller parties are already busy finding ways around the proposed changes, including by joining a bigger party or building alliances with other parties.

Yunarto Wijaya, a political analyst from Charta Politika, said both laws were needed to improve the country's legislative system, with fewer parties translating into less opposition to government programs and policies.

"These laws would only benefit the large parties in the House," he said. But he added it would be difficult not to accuse major parties of curbing the participation of minnow parties, "since they're the only ones with the ability to make political decisions."

Yunarto said a national forum should be held to discuss the law that would regulate the political system in the long run.

He added the forum should involve political parties both inside and outside the House. "The forum should discuss not just the 2014 elections, which are already near, but maybe the 2019 polls onward," he said.