Armando Siahaan, Jakarta – With the debate over a proposal to double the legislative threshold intensifying, discussion is also heating up over whether the move would improve the legislative process.
Four of the largest political parties have now backed the plan to increase the threshold – the minimum amount of votes a party needs to earn a seat in the legislature – from 2.5 percent to five percent.
The plan's supporters say this is the only viable way to reduce the number of parties in the House and streamline the legislative process, which has recently been sluggish. This year the House passed a dismal seven of 70 priority bills.
However, the plan's critics, who are mostly affiliated with smaller parties at risk of not winning a seat in the next legislative elections, argue that the plan will harm the democratic process.
"There is no direct correlation between [an increased] legislative threshold and the effectiveness of legislation," said Teguh Juwarno of the National Mandate Party (PAN).
Instead, Teguh said that the main legislative limitation is a lack of a support system of expert advisers in fields to which lawmakers are assigned.
As a result, "legislators could quickly make political decisions without first engaging in substantial discussions [with experts in the field]," he said.
But House Speaker Marzuki Alie of the Democratic Party argued that legislators would be able to focus better if they did not serve dual posts in the House. For example, many legislators from smaller parties serve on both an oversight commission and a special committee.
"We've had cases where legislators leave a commission meeting to attend [another] meeting," he said, adding that this called for an amendment to the 2009 Legislative Bodies Law.
"Thus it would help to restrict the number of parties at the House by increasing the legislative threshold," said Marzuki.
Mahfudz Siddiq, a legislator from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), added that fewer parties and adequate representation within commissions would ease the bill deliberation process.
Currently, smaller parties have as few as two to three legislators serve on each commission, which Mahfudz said is not enough to significantly influence the outcome of a bill discussion.
When a faction is only represented by a few legislators, there is a high likelihood that their opinion will be overlooked by larger factions, he said.
"Having just two legislators serve on each commission is inadequate and makes it very difficult [for them] to contribute anything," Mahfudz said.
However, he said he was also aware that having less factions in the House did not necessarily mean that conflicts of interest between parties could be prevented.
But at the very least, Mahfudz said, having more legislators per party in each commission would allow parties to better strengthen their stance on a bill.
Bima Arya Sugiarto of the National Mandate Party said that in theory, fewer parties in the House could reduce the complexity of bill deliberations.
"The idea is that the fewer the factions, the less complex the process in passing a bill," he said. However, he said, the current state of Indonesian politics suggests that political differences are inevitable.
Indeed, having less factions in the House could make political stalemates more likely if the House is divided between two equally strong camps.
The legislature is currently composed of six coalition factions and three opposition factions. "It's easier to have a deadlock when there are less parties that can be divided evenly," Bima said.
Moreover, he added, the legislative process cannot be improved unless lawmakers themselves improve. "The legislation process is weak because many of the legislators are weak and incompetent themselves," Bima said.
Along with the Democrats, the other major parties backing an increase in the House threshold are Golkar and PKS, both members of the ruling coalition. The main opposition party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), is also supporting the increased threshold.
These four parties control 407 of the 560 seats in the House.