VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The simultaneous General Elections of the President and the Legislature took place just eight months ago, in April 2019. While the next General Election is still four years away, the excitement in the political arena has already begun.
The discourse of an increase in the parliamentary threshold from 4 percent to 5 percent is circulating among political parties in the Indonesian House of Representatives.

The discussions have developed since the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) held its first National Working Meeting in 2020 between January 10-12.

It produced nine recommendations, one of which was that the parliamentary threshold was to be increased to 5 percent. The PDI-P proposal received both positive and negative responses from a number of political parties in the DPR.

Some parties appreciate it for it may help improve the quality of democracy in Indonesia. However, there were also some parties that objected to the proposed increase in parliamentary threshold.

According to those who support this discourse, an increase in the parliamentary threshold will help reduce the number of political parties. But those who did not get a large number of votes in the 2019 elections, the proposed increase would not be effective enough to simplify the number of political parties. Instead, it will only make the votes won by parties that do not qualify be wasted.

Indeed, the increase in parliamentary thresholds has happened several times in the electoral system in Indonesia. Since 2009 until now the number has continued to increase from 2.5 percent to 3 percent, and then to 4 percent.

It should be noted that in the 2014 elections, there were only 12 national parties and three local parties in Aceh that participated in the election. While in the 2019 elections, with a threshold of 4 percent, the number of parties participating in the contestation actually increased to 16 national parties and four parties in Aceh. This shows that an increase in parliamentary threshold is not very effective in reducing the number of political parties participating in elections. It only made the votes casted for parties which fell below the threshold become wasted.

An increase in the parliamentary threshold from 4 percent to 5 percent might improve the quality of democracy in Indonesia. However, the reality on the ground also needs to be considered.