[4] On 13 July 2003, President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed into effect a law outlining the composition of the reorganised MPR.

The International Foundation for Electoral Systems conducted a tracking survey that showed not all voters knew how to vote for candidates of the new DPD, or were even aware it existed.

However, fourteen of the twenty-four participating parties refused to certify the election results after allegations of irregular vote counting.

Of these cases, 38 decisions affected the final allocation of seats in the People's Representative Council and provincial and regental legislatures.

The inconsistency in the order of parties according to votes received and seats allocated arose due to a special rule created to address uneven population distribution between Java and other islands.

[15] This rule stipulates that the Hare quota values for the provinces in Java were on average higher than those for the outer islands.

More than half of PKB seats were received in the party's stronghold of East Java, where the quota value was higher.

Golkar's support in its traditional stronghold of Sulawesi declined due to the performance of medium and small parties in the region.

[17] Despite winning the largest share of vote once again in Bali, PDI-P performance there suffered the greatest after the 2002 bombings by terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah devastated the island province's economy.

The PKB, co-founded by former President and former Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman Abdurrahman Wahid, continued to perform well in its stronghold of East Java despite losing votes.

Christianity-based Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) received 15% of the vote in Christian-dominated North Sulawesi and 13 seats overall in the People's Representative Council.

[1][2] Even before the election, the seat allocation system for the People's Representative Council was also deemed "the most complicated in the world" by several news sources across the country.

[26] Both houses then convened together in the early morning of 2 October and took the oath of office as the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

[27] Ginandjar Kartasasmita was elected the inaugural chairman of the DPD with 72 of 128 votes in a run-off against Irman Gusman on 1 October.

The Chairman of the MPR was not elected until several days later when Hidayat Nur Wahid of the PKS won the vote 326 to 324 against PDI-P's Sutjipto.