House asks for new ballot design

Source : The Jakarta Post

With the House of Representatives moving to adopt an open election system, the old design for ballot papers will no longer be appropriate, a lawmaker says.

Member of the House's Commission II on legal affairs, Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, asked the General Elections Commission to produce new ballot papers which will encourage voters to choose candidates, rather than political parties.

"What we need is the sense of voting for legislative candidates. Choosing political parties means we only maintain the closed election system," Ferry said, as quoted by Antara after a hearing with KPU members and the home affairs minister on the design of ballot papers. The hearing was conducted behind closed doors.

Article 176 of the 2008 election law says a ballot paper is considered valid if a voter marks the name, number or political party column of the paper.

If the voter marks the party column, the vote goes to the political party and will be pooled to determine the number of legislative seats it secures. If the candidate's column is marked, the vote goes to the legislative aspirant. He or she will automatically win a seat if they secure at least 30 percent of the bench-mark votes. The rest of the House seats will be allocated to political parties, in accordance with the volume of votes cast per party.

Major factions at the House plan to revise the election law to change the current closed election system to an open election system, for the sake of fairness. The turn-around comes amid political parties' attempts to regain public trust after a number of lawmakers have been implicated in corruption cases.

The Executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) Hadar Navis Gumay concurred with Ferry, saying the KPU should encourage voters to select candidates rather than parties.

He said general elections should be held to select peoples' representatives, rather than party representatives.

"If we decide to apply an open election system, voters will choose candidates. Therefore the ballot papers must be designed to enable voters to mark candidates and their numbers," Hadar said.

KPU member Andi Nurpati said the KPU had prepared three designs for ballot paper for the 2009 elections.

"We are seeking advice from the House and the government as to which design is considered to be the best. The final say, however, is with us," Nurpati said.

The KPU and the House are also deliberating the ballot markings. In previous elections, voters perforated ballot papers. Public support has increased for the KPU to ask voters to tick the ballot paper.