Party Member Recruitment Should be A Consideration for Designing Election System

In almost every election Indonesian government changes the election system for its legislative elections. This is because there is a high demand from the public that political party should produce better politicians. It is expected that a reformation on the election system might actually help to make th demand reality.

“Political party is getting more and more like an event organizer. They only recruit politician in election period only,” says an election expert, Ramlan Surbakti, in a public discussion about the Election Law Bill in Jakarta (11/11).

Ramlan explains, according to the 1945 Constitution Law, the participant of legislative elections is political party. Therefore, the legal framework for election should be the one that strengthen the role of political party in the electoral process in general.

“With our current system, political party is heavily dependent on the popularity of individual candidate. Many party are dependent on their leader figure,” says Ramlan.

A senior politician, Akbar Tandjung, agree with what Ramlan says. According to the ex-Chairman of Golkar party, current political parties mostly neglect proper recruitment and regeneration process.

“A good recruitment and regeneration process will determine the quality of the party itself,” says Akbar. []