The national polling body is calling for a regulation to follow up on a recent Constitutional Court ruling which states legislative seats will be distributed based on the number of votes candidates win in the upcoming April elections.
General Elections Commission (KPU) chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshari said the regulation would outline the method for distributing seats to legislative candidates based on the number of seats won by each political party in the elections.
"According to the draft, the candidate who earns the most votes will directly receive a seat," he told reporters Thursday.
He said the commission was still discussing how to resolve problems if two or more legislative candidates won an equal number of votes.
"We are considering firstly to evaluate the size of the electoral districts won by the candidates. The seats will be handed over to the candidates who are elected in a number of electoral areas," he said.
"But, if the candidates win in districts of the same size, we are considering three options: allowing political parties to distribute the seats, using a numerical order system or through a lottery," Hafiz said.
The Constitutional Court revoked an article in the 2008 legislative elections last year concerning the way in which legislative seats were distributed.
The annulled article allowed party leaders to handpick close supporters to represent the parties in the national and regional legislatures, rather than to candidates who won the most votes.
The law also states that legislative seats must first be distributed to candidates who secure at least 30 percent of the original vote.
The rest of the seats are then allocated according to the list of the permanent legislative candidates submitted by the political parties.
Hafiz said the KPU had earlier wanted to seek a more powerful policy in the form of a government regulation in-lieu-of law (perpu) on the distribution of legislative seats.
"But the court judges informed us the ruling was legally binding and there was no need to issue this regulation," he said.
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician Ganjar Pranowo said the KPU regulation was "too weak" to regulate the distribution of legislative seats.
"It is dangerous because the KPU is a government agency. People or groups not satisfied with the KPU regulation could bring the case to court, which could threaten the cancellation of the elections," he said.
He said the House of Representatives needed to set up a special commission to alter articles in the 2008 election law which were annulled by the court.
Ganjar also criticized the government's plan to issue a regulation allowing voters to tick ballot papers twice in the legislative elections.
"I do not understand the government's way of thinking. I did not detect any emergency need for issuing this regulation. The government needs to focus on regulating the ways of distributing legislative seats," he said.
The KPU has sent the regulation draft to the President for approval.
A regional legislative candidate in Bekasi regency, West Java, Parsaulian Tambunan also opposed the issuance of the regulation allowing voters to double tick on ballots.
"Most legislative candidates have campaigned for voters to tick once on ballot papers as stipulated in the election law. It will confuse voters," Parsaulian, from the Nationality Democracy Party (PDK) said.
Meanwhile, a politician from the Democratic Party, Atte Suganda said allowing voters to tick twice on ballot papers was essential to avoid ballots becoming invalid as many people were still unaware of the new voting procedure.
"An internal survey shows about 40 percent of ballot papers would be invalid if we apply the old voting system," he said.
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