Already embroiled in legal appeals over the presidential election, the country’s three main political parties said they had no plans to fight a General Elections Commission decision made over the weekend not to comply with a Supreme Court demand to reallocate hundreds of legislative seats. The move by the commission, also known as the KPU, ends a week of speculation over whether it would abide by the Supreme Court ruling in June that seats won in the April 9 legislative polls should be reallocated. The ruling favors the Democratic Party, Golkar Party and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) at the expense of smaller parties. The KPU announced on Saturday that while it accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling on carrying out third-stage seat allocations in principle, it would not apply the ruling retroactively and alter the seat totals awarded to winners of national and local legislative elections this time around. KPU Chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said the commission would only adopt the ruling and change its regulations for the 2014 national elections. “The Supreme Court ruling is enacted . . . but not applied retroactively,” Hafiz said, adding that the provincial elections commissions (KPUD), could start inaugurating legislative winners as early as today. The court’s ruling, made on June 18 but only made public a month later, overturned a Constitutional Court decision on the distribution of House seats. If it had been enacted it would have led to 66 House seats being taken away from smaller parties and given to bigger rivals. It would have also resulted in about 1,300 provincial legislative seats being redistributed.Under the terms of the ruling, there was a 90-day transition period before it had to be implemented. If timed from the date of publication, the deadline would have been after the swearing in of new House members on Oct. 1. “We set the elected legislative candidates as of May 9, and therefore the commission’s decision is still valid,” Hafiz said. Vice President Jusuf Kalla, chairman of Golkar, appeared to be resigned to not getting extra seats, although he said the allocation controversy was confusing. “We have to deal with the decision,” he said. “The match was finished and we had the winners. But it was suddenly canceled and a new game appeared. Let us trust the KPU.” Democratic leader Anas Urbaningrum said the party was ready to accept the KPU decision, although it would cost the party 30 seats in the House. The Democrats won the April polls with more than 20 percent of the vote. “We have to let the KPU do its duty in deciding the distribution of House seats,” Anas said. PDI-P spokesman Hasto Kristiyarto said the party was happy that the decision meant provincial legislative seats would not change, but warned that the Supreme Court could refuse to swear in the next House of Representatives in October unless the KPU ordered the 66 seats to be reallocated. “I think the Supreme Court judges would refuse to inaugurate the new House members based on decree 259/2009, which they ruled as against the Election Law,” he said. KPU member Andi Nurpati noted the commission had until Oct. 22 to implement the court ruling, so it would only apply to the next national elections.
Author: The Jakarta Globe
Author: The Jakarta Globe
