Existing laws blamed for driving political deals

Fuente: 
The Jakarta Post
Fecha de publicación: 
18 Dic 2012

Several observers have blamed existing legislation for encouraging political parties to rely on business tycoons to support their operational costs, saying such practices often lead to political transactions.

According to the Clean Indonesia Movement (GIB) chairman Adhie Massardi, several existing regulations had driven political parties to dishonestly exercise all possible means to solicit financial aid.

“The 2012 Legislative Election Law, for example, requires political parties to have regional chapters in all provinces in Indonesia. It doesn’t make sense,” Adhie said during a discussion in Jakarta on Monday.

The aforementioned law stipulates that every political party that wishes to contest the 2014 elections must at a minimum have regional chapters in 33 provinces and in 50 percent of 495 regencies and municipalities across the country.

Corrupt businesspeople approach political parties to get something in return from the party

Given such a stipulation, political parties have to do extra work to convince businesspeople to join and help finance their party’s operational costs, Adhie said. “Transactional politics often occur in such cases. Corrupt businesspeople approach political parties to get something in return from the party,” he said, adding that legal immunity was one of privileges sought by such businesspeople. 

Business tycoon Siti Hartati Murdaya, for instance, was untouchable for decades due to her alleged strong connections with all of the country’s presidents except for Sukarno.

Thanks to moves by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the business tycoon is now standing trial at the Jakarta Corruption Court. The former member of the Democratic Party’s board of patrons is accused of bribing the Buol regent with Rp 3 billion (US$311,043) to secure business permits for the operation of her two oil palm plantations in a regency of Central Sulawesi.

To end or minimize the practices of transactional politics, Adhie said, the government needed to give all political parties financial assistance.

Currently, under the Home Ministerial Decree No. 212/2009, the government provides financial assistance only to nine political parties at the House of Representatives. The decree rules that each of the parties receive Rp 108 per year for every vote they received in the 2009 general election.

According to recent research from the Associations for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), the Democratic Party receives Rp 2.34 billion each year because it secured 21.65 million votes in 2009.

The association stated that the total amount of financial assistance for the nine parties was Rp 9.2 billion, less than 0.001 percent of the 2012 state budget of Rp 1.548 trillion.

In its research, the association argued that the lack of financial support from the government had forced politicians to raise money from other sources. Such practices, it said, could lead to the possibility for certain groups or individuals to exert their influence on politicians, or even the government. 

Therefore, the Perludem suggested that the government gradually increase the amount of aid to discourage transactional politics.

Meanwhile, National Democratic (NasDem) Party chief Patrice Rio Capella noted that political parties needed huge amounts of capital to finance their activities.

Moreover, he said, political parties’ spending increased especially after the adoption of a direct presidential election as well as after direct elections for heads of regional administrations.

NasDem is a new political party that is cofounded by media tycoon Surya Paloh. Another media mogul, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, had also joined the party. “It takes a lot of money to establish a political party, so they try to seek businesspeople to join them,” he said.

Patrice said his party was drafting a scheme to lessen its dependency on businesspeople.

 

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