Anita Rachman – Debate over the percentage of votes in the legislative election required for a political party to hold a seat at the House of Representatives has again caused a furor, with three parties threatening to walk out of the discussion if the bigger parties insisted on pushing for a higher margin.

The United Development Party (PPP), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) argued that the House must stick to the April agreement in which all parties agreed to set the threshold at 3 percent. The three factions refused to name another possible number to be written on the draft.

"We previously agreed, all factions, to increase the threshold to 3 percent," said Syarifuddin Sudding, from Hanura. "If they put another number, we will walk out of the discussion."

On April 4, factions at the House Legislation Body agreed to raise the threshold from the current 2.5 percent to 3 percent. The threshold is the minimum percent of votes a party must receive in legislative elections in order to win seats in the House of Representatives.

Golkar and the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) – the second and third-biggest factions at the House – are seeking to double the current threshold from 2.5 percent to 5 percent. The ruling Democratic Party wants it to be set at 4 percent, while the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is pushing for between 3 and 4 percent. The five smaller parties all want it to stay at 2.5 percent.

Legislation Body chairman Ignatius Mulyono said the House had two options – stay at 3 percent or increase it to 5 percent. The latter option will get strong reactions from the three parties.

Ignatius said the factions still had time to reach an agreement on the issue, with the deadline for drafting the policy set at the end of June.

"If [the three parties] choose to walk out, we cannot do anything. The process will still go on. It could only be stopped if 50 percent of the forum walks out."