REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Vice President Jusuf Kalla has expressed his disagreement to tightening the requirements for running in regional elections through non-party nominations.
He has further suggested abiding by the older rules that remain in force.
"Let it just run as it has in the past. It (non-party nominations) may also be used as a way to prevent single candidates," he said here on Thursday.
The presence of independent candidates in regional elections are needed to balance efforts by political parties to compete for heads of regional governments.
Several regions in Indonesia will hold regional head elections simultaneously next year, including for the election of Jakarta's governor.
"This is meant to make democracy healthy, because good democracy happens where there are checks and balances. If the requirements for individuals to run independently are too heavy, discrepancies will happen. And if the desire still has no accommodation, the question is how to make a good decision without necessarily reducing the role of political parties," he said.
With regards to the deliberation about draft law number 8 of 2014 on elections of provincial governors, district heads and city mayors proposed by the government and the House of Representatives, disagreements over the issue still remain.
Based on the current law, a candidate wishing to run with a non-party nomination must receive support from 6.5 to 10 percent of the population of his region.
Based on the ruling of the Constitutional Court, the home affairs ministry has proposed continuing this percentage of the support needed by individual candidates, coinciding with the fixed number of voters in the last election, so that the minimum support required for individual candidates will be less.
Most factions in the House of Representatives have proposed support, setting the percentage between 10 and 15 percent of the population.
The proposal, if enacted, might result in an increase in the burden on individual candidates.
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