Asia-Pacific Newsweek
January 3, 2025
jakarta – The Constitutional Court on Thursday lifted the threshold for parties to nominate presidential candidates, restoring hopes of more competitive polls in the future after more than a dozen attempts to open the race.
The court ruled in favor of four university students who challenged the threshold for a party or a coalition of parties to hold 20% of the seats in the House of Representatives or win 25% of the popular vote in the last legislative election to qualify. presidential candidate.
The court agreed with the petitioners that the strict requirements in the 2017 General Election Act discriminated against small parties and newcomers and reduced the competitiveness of elections, undermining popular sovereignty and the rights of voters.
“We find that this threshold tends to favor large parties, or at least those with seats in the House of Representatives,” Judge Sardi Isla said in his ruling.
“Not to mention that in previous elections, certain parties dominated the candidate nomination process, which limited voters’ rights to choose alternative candidates,” he said.
The ruling essentially allows any political party or coalition of parties registered with the General Election Commission (KPU) to field candidates, regardless of how many votes they won in the last legislative election, and regardless of whether they hold seats in the House of Representatives.
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The judges recommended that the government and the House of Representatives find another way to regulate how parties nominate candidates, rather than based on shares of House seats or the popular vote.
The ruling was handed down seven to two, with Justices Anwar Usman and Daniel Yusmic Foekh dissenting on the grounds that the petitioners lacked legal standing to pursue the case.
A week after the presidential election last February, four students from the National Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga (UIN) in Yogyakarta submitted a petition saying they were independent and did not represent any political party.
Political parties are divided over the issue of third-party intervention, with President Prabowo Subianto’s Revolutionary Party and its allies the Professional Bloc Party and the National Awakening Party (PKB) opposing the petition. Supporters are smaller parties without representation in the legislature, such as the Hanura Party and the Labor Party.
Gerindra and Golkar are respectively the third and second largest parties in the House of Representatives, behind the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which is currently the only de facto opposition party and controls 19% of the seats in the House of Representatives.
Indonesia’s presidential nomination threshold was introduced in 2004, when the figure was set at 15% of the seats in the House of Representatives or 20% of the popular vote. Five years later, the House of Representatives increased the share of seats to 20%, or 25% of the popular vote.
Thursday’s ruling marks a change in the court’s stance.
In the past, 33 petitions have been filed challenging the thresholds set out in the General Elections Act 2017. The petitions were either dismissed by the Constitutional Court on the grounds that the threshold was determined by the House of Representatives and the government, or because the petitioners lacked legal standing.
Also read: Court rules in favor of major parties
Thursday’s ruling automatically invalidated three other similar petitions to revoke the threshold. The documents were submitted by election activist Titi Anggraini, co-founder of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), election watchdog Network for Democracy and Electoral Integrity (Netgrit) and a group of lecturers and lawyers.
Titi called the ruling a “victory” for all Indonesian people, saying it would benefit political parties and voters.
“Political parties will have a better chance of nominating presidential candidates, and voters will have more voting options in elections. This will ensure a more fair, equal and inclusive democracy in Indonesia in the future.” jakarta post Thursday.
Titi urged political parties to prepare for the 2029 presidential election.
Hadar Navis Gumay, executive director of Netgrit and a former KPU commissioner, said: “The public will have more alternative candidates in the race in the future. We are grateful to the court for this ruling.”
The court’s surprise decision on Thursday came just months after it lowered the electoral threshold for parties to nominate candidates in regional chief elections, opening the door for opposition candidates to challenge the dominance of the Gerindra-led Kadima Indonesia Alliance (KIM). Opened the door.
Indonesia held presidential and legislative elections in February last year, with Prabowo and the opposition People’s Democratic Party winning respectively. Nine months later, people voted for governors, mayors and regents in regional elections across the country.
