Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Jakarta – The country's big political parties should provide proof that their push for an increased legislative threshold is not part of a sinister ploy to crowd small parties off the political stage, critics say.

At a discussion on Thursday on the issue, veteran journalist Budiarto Shambazy said the proposal to double the threshold from 2.5 percent to 5 percent, championed by the four biggest parties in the House of Representatives, could be viewed as a "political trick."

The threshold is the minimum share of votes needed by a party to clinch a seat in the House.

Bima Arya Sugiarto of the National Mandate Party (PAN) agreed, calling on the big four to explicitly state their reasons for pushing for the increase.

"Before we even start discussing the threshold, we should first decide on the grand design of our political system," he said. "If the point is to trim down the number of parties in the House, this should be clearly stated in the grand design. But there's been no statement of this."

The PAN has called for parties to be allowed to join together as coalitions in a bid to counter the expected threshold increase.

However, the Democratic Party, the Golkar Party, the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) have all denounced the move, arguing that the threshold must be hiked to 5 percent in order to streamline the legislative process and shore up the presidency.

PDI-P legislator Hasto Kristiyanto, speaking at Thursday's discussion, said his party was pursuing the increase mainly to strengthen the presidency. "This can only be achieved through a simplified multiparty system, which the increased threshold will give us," he said.

Hasto also warned the rest of the big four that a doubling of the threshold must be accompanied by a process to allow parties to consolidate, without which, "raising the legislative threshold could be seen as a trick by the big parties to eradicate smaller ones." He said consolidation would motivate all parties to work that much harder in pursuing their political agendas.

Separately, PKS secretary general and House Deputy Speaker Anis Matta said his party was considering proposing that any party meeting the increased threshold be allowed to nominate its own presidential candidate.

Currently, only parties that win at least 15 percent of votes in the legislative elections are allowed to nominate their own candidates for the presidential polls that follow a few months later.

Anis said the idea was sparked by a call earlier this week that PAN chairman Hatta Rajasa contest the 2014 polls.

"Hatta is proof that Indonesia has many potential leaders for the future," Anis said. "In light of his backing, we're considering an idea whereby all parties that meet the threshold can nominate a candidate."

However, United Development Party (PPP) secretary Romy Romahurmuzy rejected the idea, insisting that the 15 percent limit still apply for nominating a presidential candidate.