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The General Elections Commission is scheduled to decide on Saturday on a Supreme Court ruling that could throw legislative seat allocations into disarray.

The decision will take into account that the ruling was made after all electoral phases for the April 8 legislative polls had been completed, a commissioner said on Friday.

“The General Elections Commission [KPU] will hold a plenary session on Saturday, August 1, and one of its items for discussion is the ruling of the Supreme Court,” commissioner Andi Nurpati said. “Of course, we hope to make a decision in relation to the Supreme Court ruling.”

She said that a decision was necessary so that it could become a reference point for councils at the district and municipal levels, many of which are scheduled to swear in their new council members this month.

Andi said that according to the information she had, the first district council was scheduled to swear in its members on Monday.

The Supreme Court ruling, which was reached on June 18 but was only made public a month later, provides a 90-day transition period before it must be implemented.

In its decision, the court overturned the formula used by the KPU to calculate seats in the House of Representatives and also at district and municipal councils.

If the court ruling is applied, many of the smaller political parties would lose seats in the House and on the councils to larger political parties, including the Democratic Party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Andi said that in making its decision, the KPU would take into consideration that the Supreme Court ruling was issued after the conclusion of all stages of the April 8 legislative elections.

“If we look at this Supreme Court ruling, it was issued after all of the electoral phases had been completed,” she said.

Other members of the KPU have argued that under the current state system, laws and regulations cannot be applied retroactively, and therefore the court ruling cannot be applied to seat allocations that had already been decided on before it was issued.

Andi added that if the Supreme Court ruling was applied, district and municipal councils across the country could see many seats left vacant as a large number of regional parties would be unable to meet the complicated requirements to claim undistributed seats.

The Supreme Court said the original formula to distribute the remaining unoccupied seats was incorrect and set up a new system that made it more difficult for parties to claim seats.

According to the court’s ruling, the number of surplus votes that parties did not use to get seats, divided by the number of seats still vacant in a province, should result in 100 percent allocation.

“After we studied the ruling from the Supreme Court, especially concerning district and municipal councils, there will be many councils with vacant seats,” Andi said.

“Only a few political parties can meet the ruling’s requirements,” she said, adding that in some regions, there might be only one or two eligible parties.