Jakarta – The tales of the New Order regime’s successes, which are being used as a selling point for the Golkar Party, are misleading.

Hendra A Setyawan, Jakarta – The discourse on the simplification of political parties such as by increasing the parliamentary threshold (the minimum number of votes required to obtain a seat in the national parliament) is the principle challenge facing new political parties seeking to get into the parliament through the 2014 general elections.

Jakarta – Concerns that if the parliamentary threshold is increased it will impact on the number of valid votes that are wasted may be excessive because it will actually reduce the number of valid votes lost.

M Zaid Wahyudi – The growing number of ordinary people’s votes that are needlessly lost is a direct consequence of the application of an increasingly higher parliamentary threshold.

Melly Febrida, Jakarta – The poor performance of the People’s Representative Assembly (DPR) has provoked four non-government organisations (NGOs) to launch the NGO Coalition for Clean and Effective Parliament (Koalisi LSM untuk Parlemen Bersih dan Efektif).