Armando Siahaan & Anita Rachman – Lawmakers on Monday were divided over whether the legislative threshold should be increased from the current 2.5 percent to 5 percent.
House of Representatives Commission II, which oversees home affairs, is considering revising the General Election Law that requires political parties to receive at least 2.5 percent of the vote to qualify for a seat in the national legislature.
Nurul Arifin, a member of Commission II from the Golkar Party, said it was considering raising the threshold to as much as 5 percent of the vote. "This is not to kill the small parties, but to strengthen democracy with a simplified multiparty system," she said.
Nurul said Golkar as a faction endorsed the move, and she claimed that most of the big parties in Commission II had voiced a similar stance.
Priyo Budi Santoso, the House deputy speaker from Golkar, said the issue would be raised and studied in the Democrat-led ruling coalition's joint secretariat.
But the House deputy speaker from the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Pramono Anung, said increasing the threshold to 5 percent would hamper democracy.
"Seeing the current situation, 2.5 percent is a moderate figure," he said, adding that all political parties had the right to participate in general elections.
He said the idea of simplifying the system for the next general elections was acceptable, but it should be understood that it was a basic human right to establish political parties.
In the 2009 legislative election, the threshold practically eliminated 29 parties. If the election had been held using the proposed 5 percent minimum, parties such as the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and National Awakening Party (PKB) would not have earned seats, while the United Development Party (PPP) would have barely made it.
Desmon Mahesa, a lawmaker from Gerindra, said he did not object to the goal of simplifying the multiparty system, but that a high threshold would create a discontinuity between the aspirations represented at the regional and the national level.
"There are parties at the regional level that would not be able to channel their aspirations at the national level," he said. The issue should not merely become a political deal among the big parties to kill small parties, he added.
Mahfud Siddiq, a lawmaker from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said the best way to manage political parties was not by preventing them from growing, but by applying strict regulations for them to participate in elections.
He said it was a basic right of people or groups to join organizations and establish political parties, but only parties with a clear structure and branches should be able to take part in general elections. "The party should have branches from the lowest local level to the national level," he said.
Irgan Chairul Mahfiz, secretary general of the PPP faction in the House, said it would be difficult for some small parties to participate in the discourse on a 5 percent legislative threshold. He said there would be a follow-up discussion of the proposal, within both the factions and the coalition secretariat.
"It should be understood that this is our political [point of view], that there should be involvement of many political parties," he said, adding that last year PPP got some 5.6 percent of the votes in the general elections. "We don't have problems, but it should be discussed first," he said.
Arya Fernandes, a political analyst with Charta Politika, said that reducing the number of political parties would strengthen the presidential system because the composition of the coalition would not be based on a political cartel, but on a shared platform and ideology.
He also said that having fewer parties would solidify the identity and ideology of those that remained, making it easier for the voters to identify and connect with a party.