Nearly 90 Percent of Legislature Candidates Have Not Fulfilled the Requirements, KPU Alleges because Registration Time is Limited

JAKARTA - KPU chairman Hasyim Asy'ari assessed that many prospective legislative member candidates (bacaleg) fall into the category of not meeting the requirements (BMS) because the time for registration is limited so that some of the required documents cannot be completed by the registrants.

Political parties register their candidates for legislative members (bacaleg) to the KPU on May 1–14, 2023, followed by the stages of verification/research of the registrants' files by the General Election Commission (KPU) on May 15, 2023 to June 23, 2023.

“There are a lot of required documents. There are statement letters, various kinds of statement letters, then certificates that must be obtained from other institutions. The registration situation was (at that time) post-Eid, which (meaning) was very limited in time to fulfill it," said the chairman of the KPU, reported by ANTARA, Sunday, June 25.

A number of legislators did not meet the requirements because the required documents had not been completely completed, including legalized copies of diplomas, medical certificates, or certificates from courts.

Even so, Hasyim believes that the candidates for legislative members and the political parties that support them will try to complete all the requirements after the registration period and when the KPU examines the registrant files.

Thus, the period for submitting revisions to the files of the legislative candidates, which took place from June 26, 2023, to July 9, 2023, was sufficient and not burdensome for the legislative candidates and supporting political parties.

“I think friends from political parties and legislative candidates understand everything. The point is this, they have realized when registering that there may be documents that have not been fulfilled, so since being registered, say on 14 (May), friends have prepared themselves for these things, because the research verification period of May 15, to June 23 is longer than 1 month," he said.

The results of the KPU's verification/research on the files of prospective legislative members show that 89.81 percent of the total 10.323 legislative candidates who have registered still do not meet the requirements to participate in the 2024 election.

Thus, only 1.063 or 10.19 percent of legislative candidates have complete documents or meet the requirements.

The election for legislative members, namely for the DPR, DPD, DPRD at the provincial and regency/city levels, is scheduled to take place simultaneously with the presidential and vice presidential elections on 14 February 2024.

The stages towards that, namely the registration and verification periods have taken place, namely May 1–14, 2023, and May 15, 2023, to June 23, 2023 respectively.

In the next stage, the supporting political parties and legislative election candidates who still do not meet the requirements will propose improvements to the KPU on June 26, 2023 – July 9, 2023. Then, document verification of the results of the improvements will be made from July 10, 2023 to August 6, 2023.

Next, the preparation of the provisional list of candidates (DCS) on August 6, 2023 – September 23, 2023, and the determination of the final list of candidates (DCT) on September 24, 2023 – November 3, 2023.