The Jakarta Post
Monday, 19 December, 2006

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakart

The government has finalized a draft regulation to establish local political parties in Aceh, which will only allow candidates to run for national House of Representatives seats with backing from national parties.

The law would mean local party members could also contest the presidential elections, according to the final draft of the regulation, which is expected to be passed into law by the end of this year.

However, House members will have to quit local parties once they are nominated, the draft says, a copy of which was obtained Monday by The Jakarta Post. By quitting local parties, local candidates would then be beholden to the demands of national political parties.

Dual party membership is not allowed in the country's national political system.

Aceh will be the only province in the country where the establishment of local political parties is allowed. The deal is part of a peace agreement the government signed with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in August last year.

GAM has said it would establish a local party after the central government completed the regulation.

Communications and Information Minister Sofyan A. Djalil said last week the government would issue the regulation by the end of this month.

He also said the government would not seek to revise the 2002 law because the creation of a local party in Aceh was already mentioned in the recently passed law on Aceh governance.

Conflicting laws are often brought to the Constitutional Court, which can annul them.

According to the final draft, a local party has the right to form a coalition with another local or national party during elections for local legislative seats.

Local parties in Aceh are also eligible for funding from the provincial budget based on the number of seats they win in local legislative elections.

The Independent Elections Commission will check and scrutinize all funding sources for local parties, while the governor will check possible violations and "loyalty" to the Republic of Indonesia, the regulation says.

The Aceh peace agreement states that the legal basis creating local parties must be completed 18 months after the August 2005 signing of the accord.

The demand to allow local political parties in the country stirred intense debate last year during the first rounds of the Aceh peace negotiations, with many politicians fearing it could lead to the province splitting from the republic.

Supporters of the idea have said the fear was baseless, arguing members of a local party would represent areas better than those running for local office for a national party.

The establishment of the national Regional Representatives Council also allows input from independent regional candidates but the body has limited powers.