Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The big and medium-sized parties are pushing for a 5 percent parliamentary threshold at all levels of government and a full district system in the 2014 legislative elections.
They are the seven political parties that each hold between 5 and 21 percent of seats at the House of Representatives. They will collaborate to achieve the goal in the planned revision of the 2008 law on political parties and legislative elections. The government is currently working on the draft.
Small parties have voiced their objection to the idea, accusing the stronger parties of trying to kill democracy. They mean to maintain the present 2.5 percent parliamentary threshold for the House, provincial legislatures and regental/municipal legislative councils.
Secretary-general of the Golkar Party Idrus Marham said the 5 percent parliamentary threshold was decided during the party's recent working meeting in Jakarta.
The party says it will not seek an electoral threshold higher than five percent because it would impinge on the freedom of association.
"We need a simple multi-party system not only because the existing major parties have similar ideological and political platforms, but because the party system needs to form a strong and effective government and uphold the presidential system," Idrus said Tuesday.
He claimed that the parties making up the Yudhoyono government, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the Democratic Party and Golkar all sought to introduce a simple multi-party system.
Democratic Party Chairman Anas Urbaningrum and PAN Secretary General Taufik Kurniawan said on separate occasions that the 100 percent increase to the parliamentary threshold was needed to "strengthen democracy".
"If the House doesn't have the political courage to build a simple multi-party system, democracy will go nowhere and all parties will fade into mediocrity as small parties 'hijack' supporters of major parties as has been apparent in the past three legislative elections," said Taufik.
If the parliamentary threshold is not increased, he added, the Democratic Party, which won the 2009 legislative election with 21 percent of seats at the House, would not be able to maintain its performance in 2014 because smaller parties would work to win over its supporters.
Gandjar Pranowo, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said his party had long ago proposed a higher parliamentary threshold at all levels to achieve an effective and strong government and better democracy.
Regarding the election system, he criticized the present semi-proportional system which, he said, is manipulated by certain major parties to win more seats at the House.
"Whether it is the proportional or district system that will be used later on, all seats at the House, provincial and regional legislatures must be contested in the electoral districts and remaining votes shouldn't be given to other parties that received too few votes to win any seats," he said.
The proposed increase in the parliamentary threshold has sparked opposition from minor parties, including the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), which said the move was orchestrated by major parties to absorb seats won by minor parties.