Two Recommendation from Perludem Regarding the Districting Provisions in the Election Law Bill

The Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) recommends two things regarding the districting process in the Election Law Bill. The first recommendation is to let the Election Commission (KPU) to do the districting for the national legislative (DPR) elections.

“We should let KPU to do the districting. This is important to prevent gerry mandering practice, which is a practice of districting for the advantage of a certain political party,” says the Executive Director of Perludem, Titi Anggraini, during a public discussion titled “Law Enforcement in the Election Law Bill” in Jakarta (11/06).

The second recommendation is to include the seven districting provisions as contained in Article 3 of the KPU Regulation No.5/2013 in the Election Law. This is important to rectify the error during the previous districting.

“The current map of electoral districts has several incongruencies with the area integrality principle. For example, in South Kalimantan II, there is one seat for the Municipality of Banjarmasin. Meanwhile, the position of Banjarmasin itself does not integral with the area of South Kalimantan II,” Titi explains.

The seven principles of districting as contained in the KPU Regulation No.5/2013 are: vote equality, subject to proportionality election system, proportional seats allocation, area integralism, equality in geographical scope, cohesiveness, and sustainability.