Closed Proportional System Is Considered Difficult For Indigenous Peoples To Become Candidates

Illustration of the 2024 General Election

JAKARTA - The Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN) stated that the closed proportional election system could certainly make it difficult for indigenous peoples who want to participate in the 2024 General Election as candidates for legislative members (caleg).

"If the election system is decided to be proportional to be closed, it will greatly affect indigenous peoples," said AMAN Secretary General Rukka Sombolinggi, quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, March 16.

According to him, the closed proportional electoral system makes voters faced with choosing political parties participating in the election, not figures from legislative candidates. Then only then will the political parties determine who they appoint to become representatives in the DPR RI, provincial, district and city DPRDs.

Therefore, the opportunity to be elected by political parties will be difficult for indigenous peoples to get because political parties are certain to choose the legislative candidates they want.

"Vocations, the public's desire to position their candidates which have been decided at traditional deliberations can no longer be closed proportionally. Prospective people who run is no longer the decisions of the villages, but it becomes a decision in political parties, it is no longer a matter of who gets votes but is born from the choice of political parties," he said.

He agreed that the electoral system should continue to be improved, but not by returning to a closed proportional system.

Meanwhile, according to Rukka, the more generations of indigenous peoples who become members of the legislature and executives, this will provide a better space for the creation of more pro-policies towards indigenous peoples.

"For legislative candidates for the next regime for the 2024 period, only one of us, (accommodating) there must be a Law on Indigenous Peoples to be ratified immediately. Then in the province and in that area there is a Regional Regulation on Indigenous Peoples that must be ratified immediately," he said.