Papua Legislative Council Office (Jubi)dprp
Jayapura, Jubi – The uncertain situation on 14 seats for indigenous Papuans as part of Special Automy Law’s mandate has become a concern of Ferry Kareth, the lecturer of Cenderawasih University.
“People should know that 14 additional seats in Papua Legislative Council has not yet executed. The recent parliament with 55 legislators has no right being considered as the members of Papua Legislative Council, because there are fourteen members that have not been appointed yet. It’s Special Autonomy Law’s mandate,” Ferry Kareth said during the dialogue break with the members of Papua People’s Assembly at Tanah Hitam, last week.
To solve this problem, Kareth further said people and certain elites should stop the conflict among them. “It’s Special Autonomy Law’s mandate and it should immediately recruited. I am sure it needs times to recruit 14 representatives. It’s important,” Kareth said.
He predicted the number of autonomy seats would be increase over the rising number of population because its accretion is the ratio of the population of voters. “It might become 16 or more in 2015 because of the increase number of population,” he said.
In addition, it’s important that indigenous Papuans must speak through local political party. Though he admitted about a local political party “Partai Papua Bersatu’ but it can not be said as local political party. “Decree from the Ministry of Legal and Human Right Affairs doesn’t mean it could directly participate in General Election because there’s specific rule to participate in the election. Partai Papua Bersatu only got acknowledgement as political party instead of local political parties in Aceh. This situation should be understood,” he said.
Therefore, Kareth added Special Regional Regulation should be established to accommodate Papua Legislative Council to voice this issue. Meanwhile, the Secretary General of Papua Presidium Council Thaha Al Hamid also highlighted on this issue. He had two opinions about 14 seats issue, namely the efforts to enforce and ignore the mandate of Special Autonomy Law. “14 seats must be existed. It’s already executed in Manokwari (West Papua Province). I thought it’s between like and dislike judgment to not let certain people being recruited and so on,” he said.
For that reason, he believed the governor and all stakeholders would provide some sort of decision to accelerate it. “Related to the mandate is must be consistent. If we want to execute, just do it. Do not be hesitated,” he said. (Sindung Sukoco/rom)
