Page 344 - BUKU STRENGTHENING THE INDONESIAN PARLIAMENTARY DIPLOMACY FADLI ZON

Today, with less than two weeks, Indonesia will again begin to initiate a new election reform.
We will begin to elect simultaneously the President and Vice President, members of the House
at the national and regional levels as well as members of the Regional Representatives Council
with 20,528 seats all over Indonesia. As for the Indonesian House, we also expand our future
membership from 560 seats to 575 seats in this year election to adapt with the new addition of
multi-member electoral districts. Election system in Indonesia is likely the most direct election
methods ever exist compare to other democracies such as the US or India and even the United
Kingdom or countries in Europe.

Our challenge today is to seek the best fit of our political transition methods as a means to
establish a stronger and consolidated democracy. There are concern on the current political
financing methods as well. The fact that we use an open proportional system, where we can
compete not just between parties but also among people of our own party may raise issue on
high political costs.

Therefore, it is important also to address political financing. Today, the public funding of
political parties is around Rp 1,000 or 7 cent US$ per vote. There are views from civil society as
well as political party to raise the bar of public funding to Rp 5,000 (35 cent US$) per vote or up
to Rp 10.000 (70 cent US$) per vote as a means to diminishing the reliance of party on private
donors.

This small piece of story about Indonesian Democracy is something that I think valuable to
share with you as a food for thought that every journey of democracy had its own way. There
are no one size fits all. Democracy should be build upon each of our own local wisdom and
adapted to fit each national social, cultural and political context. But one thing is certain, that
democracy is all about people and to put people at the heart of the very foundation of policy
making is one way we can translate the Open Government and Open Parliament.

When Open Government Partnership (OGP) was launched in 2011 with Indonesia as its founding
countries, it did not touch upon the issue of legislative openness. It all started in 2013, when
a new thematic working group on legislative openness was introduced at the OGP Summit in
London. From that on, the issue is evolving by stressing out the importance of parliament to
promote also an openness regime. Some of the parliament, even introduce their own national
action plan, such as the French National Assembly and the Georgian Parliament.

Soon after, in 2018, the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia considers that
it is also the time for parliament to take actions of openness and to be involved in the global
openness regime by submitting our own national action plan to the OGP. Thus, today, we are
now officially becoming part of the multilateral initiative aiming to promote greater openness
and good governance in the legislative area.

Selected Speeches of the Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia I 331