Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – It appears that the House of Representatives will still be dominated by celebrities and the same old politicians we love to hate, but several parties are giving the chance for activists to run in the 2014 race.
Former leader of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) Faisol Riza, who was kidnapped for two months during the upheavals of May 1998, will be among the rights activists who will compete in the 2014 legislative election if the General Elections Commission (KPU) verifies their eligibility.
Faisol told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that he had decided to join the Islamic-based National Awakening Party (PKB) in order to boost efforts to search for the whereabouts of missing fellow activists.
"I hope I can speed up the search for my fellow activists who are still missing. I'm aiming to promote policies that will make this possible as well as other policies that will further uphold human rights in this country," Faisol said at KPU headquarters on Monday.
Faisol is not alone. Other noted 1998 activists have followed suit, including, among others, Aan Rusdianto from the Families of Missing Persons Association (IKOHI), who has been nominated as a legislative candidate by the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party, and Miksil Mina Munir from the City Forum (Forkot), who is registered with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
Other than activists from the 1998 movement, who are credited with helping to overthrow former president Soeharto, other rights defenders have also been recruited to run in the election next April.
They include Agung Putri, a former member of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam) and Yulianti Ratnaningsih, former member of the Surabaya-based Pro-Democracy Women's Group (KPPD). They will run on PDI-P tickets.
"The participation of activists will undoubtedly help the party to reach out to the people and promote their rights through more public policies that the PDI-P will fight for in the House," PDI-P secretary-general Tjahjo Kumolo said after handing the list of the party's 560 potential legislative candidates to the KPU on Monday.
The PDI-P is the party that has recruited most rights activists in addition to several incumbents from the same background, such as Budiman Sudjatmiko, who founded the PRD in 1996 and led street demonstrations in Jakarta during the events of 1998. Budiman is currently a member of the House's Commission II overseeing domestic governance.
Monday was the deadline for political parties to submit their provisional lists of legislative candidates. Not all parties managed to nominate enough candidates to compete for the 560 seats in the House. The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) submitted 492 names, the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI) 512 names and the Crescent Star Party (PBB) 552 names.
KPU chairman Husni Kamil Malik said the commission had received documents on 6,576 candidates; 2,434 of whom are women.
The poll body will scrutinize all of the documents to verify the candidates' eligibility. The KPU is expected to officially announce the final results in early June.
All parties, he said, managed to fulfill the 30 percent quota for women as required by the 2012 Legislative Election Law.
Most political parties are still relying on celebrities – singers, actresses, sportsmen – to boost their votes in the upcoming elections.
They are also still giving chances to members implicated in graft scandals to seek reelection. The Golkar Party, for instance, is nominating Setya Novanto and Kahar Muzakir, who are both implicated in the National Games (PON) graft scandal.
Several parties such as the NasDem Party and the National Mandate Party (PAN) claimed that they only endorsed young legislative hopefuls. PAN's youngest legislative candidate is 21 years old.
Others boasted of having recruited candidates with doctoral degrees. Golkar has 44 candidates with doctoral degrees; the United Development Party (PPP) and the PKB has 14 and 15, respectively.