During the first phases of registration, 150 parties were registered with the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. However, this number was reduced to 50 and then 24 after scrutiny from the newly created General Election Commission. This reduction from the 48 parties that stood in the 1999 legislative election was attributed mainly to a new election law that allowed only parties that had won 2% of seats in the DPR, or 3% of seats in provincial and regental legislatures in half of the provinces to stand in the 2004 election. Only six parties met this requirement, and the remaining parties were required to merge or reorganise into a new party.