Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Legislators on Tuesday approved a revision to the 2007 Election Organization Law to allow politicians to serve on the General Elections Commission (KPU), despite criticism that it will jeopardize the KPU's impartiality.
Fourteen NGOs said they would challenge the law at the Constitutional Court shortly after it was passed by a House of Representatives' plenary meeting.
Protestors rallied in front of the House in Jakarta as House deputy speaker Pramono Anung of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), who led the meeting, banged his gavel, declaring the passage of the controversial bill into law.
"Within two weeks, we will file a judicial review with the Constitutional Court to challenge the law under the 1945 Constitution," one activist, Hadar Nafiz Gumay of the Center for Electoral Reform, said.
The House dropped a clause in the 2007 law that required political party members to wait for five years after resigning from their parties before applying to serve on the KPU or Election Supervisory Committees (Bawaslu).
The new law says that politicians must resign from political parties before applying to serve on the KPU, but does not stipulate a waiting period.
Critics and political observers have raised concerns on the House's decision, which they said might lead to conflicts of interest for KPU and Bawaslu members. Hadar said the scrapped clause was needed to prevent partisans from "infiltrating" the election oversight bodies.
"It is very, very difficult to believe that a political party member could be free from the influence of his party a day after he resigns," Hadar said.
A single lawmaker interrupted the plenary meeting, which passed the bill almost unanimously, to voice a concern similar to Hadar's.
"Our political faction wants a waiting period before a political member can become a member of the KPU or Bawaslu," lawmaker Ahmad Rubahi of the National Mandate Party (PAN) said.
Pramono, however, played down the statement, saying, "PAN's faction has mentioned your concerns in its official review of the bill."
Other lawmakers previously said that a waiting period would not guarantee the impartiality of KPU or Bawaslu members.
Hadar said lawmakers should learn from the controversy surrounding the resignation of KPU member Andi Nurparti to join Presient Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, which gained the most votes in the 2009 election.
Andi announced her resignation in 2010, to the chagrin of lawmakers and politicians who questioned her impartiality while serving as member of the KPU. She is now embroiled in a forgery scandal in which she is accused of falsifying a Constitutional Court document to rig the results of a 2009 legislative election in South Sulawesi.
Golkar Party legislator Chairuman Harahap said the allegations surrounding Andi were proof that nothing could guarantee neutrality – "even if [members] resigned many years before joining the KPU and the Bawaslu."
PDI-P lawmaker Ganjar Pranowo, meanwhile, blamed the government's selection committee for approving Andi as a candidate KPU member in 2009.