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Political parties in no rush to list legislative candidates
Andra Wisnu , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 07/28/2008 12:07 PM | National
With less than a month to go before the deadline for political parties to submit a list of their legislative candidates, some major parties have yet to nominate candidates.
To date, only the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) has come up with a list of legislative candidates, although chairman of the PKS faction at the House of Representatives, Mahfud Siddiq, declined to make known the candidates before submitting the list to the General Elections Commission (KPU).
During its national congress in Makassar last week, PKS secretary-general Anis Matta revealed the party had listed 568 legislative candidates for next year's general elections, 36 percent of whom are women. The party, which won 45 House seats in 2004, is looking to win 110 seats in 2009.
"What matters now is to focus on reaching our target of winning 20 percent of all votes in the legislative election on April 9, 2009," he said.
The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the second largest party at the House with 109 seats, has begun selecting potential candidates.
PDI-P lawmaker Ganjar Pranowo said the party would have a list of names ready in the coming weeks.
The Golkar Party, the biggest party at the House with 129 seats, and the National Awakening Party (PKB), were still sorting through applications.
"Golkar is in the process of verifying our candidates. We want to make sure our candidate list is free of those close to or related to people in power," said Priyo Budi Santoso, chairman of the Golkar faction at the House.
PKB lawmaker Nursyahbani Katjasungkana said her party was still waiting to receive all the applications.
"The PKB requires at least 550 eligible candidates in the list. We're still collecting the forms," she said.
The PKB's chances in next year's election are in question following a bitter internecine feud that has polarized the party into two camps: the camp of chairman Muhaimin Iskandar and the faction of founder and chief patron Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid. Following a Supreme Court verdict in favor of Muhaimin, former president Gus Dur called on his followers to abstain from voting next year.
However, Nursyahbani was not worried, saying all candidates, whether they signed up with Gus Dur's backing or Muhaimin's, would still have to go through the party's selection process.
Four years ago, major parties struggled to beat the deadline to submit a list of their legislative candidates. Some party officials attempted to negotiate with KPU staff to be allowed to submit documents for additional candidates.
But the KPU said it would not tolerate late submissions in 2009, KPU member Andi Nurpati said.
"We want parties to submit the documents on time. I don't care what the parties do internally, as long as all the requirements, like wealth declarations and police reports for every candidate, are complete," she said.
The KPU has set a time frame of between August 14 and 19 as the deadline for parties to submit their candidate lists, with a finalized list to be announced on October 31.
The commission will conduct an administrative verification of legislative candidates between August 15 and September 7. Parties will be allowed to revise their lists between September 10 and 16, before the KPU announces the preliminary list of legislative candidates by September 26 at the latest.
Andi Hajramurni contributed to the report from Makassar, South Sulawesi.
