Perludem Reminds Discussions On The Election Bill Do Not Focus Only On The Threshold

JAKARTA - Researcher of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) Heroik M Pratama encouraged the DPR and the government to make a priority scale when discussing the Election Bill (RUU). This needs to be done to find out which rules should be fixed first.

"In discussing this bill, our policy makers, members of the DPR, must make a priority scale. Which is the crucial issue that must be fixed immediately," said Heroik in an online discussion, Sunday, January 24.

Furthermore, he said that his party understands that the discussion of the Election Bill is an arena for political parties to seek election incentives in the Election. However, the portion of the interests of political parties is greater when the discussion is carried out than to fix problems in the electoral design.

Political interests, he said, include discussing the threshold that can delay the completion of the Election Bill and this is not new. This is because this kind of debate has occurred when the DPR determined the threshold for presidential nominations in Law Number 7 of 2017.

"Unfortunately this portion is more in the process of discussing our Election Law than in thinking about the record of problems from our election design which are responded to and improved in our Election Law," he said.

It is known that Commission II of the DPR RI is currently discussing the Election Bill, which includes a number of crucial issues such as the electoral system, presidential candidacy thresholds and parliamentary thresholds.

In the latest draft as of November 26, 2020, the provisions regarding the Election system, as well as thresholds, have been strictly regulated. The election system has established an open proportional system and is applicable for elections from the DPR to Provincial DPRD levels, as well as Regency / Municipal DPRDs.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary threshold is set in stages. The threshold for DPR is set at 5 percent of the number of valid votes nationally.

Meanwhile, the provincial level DPRD threshold must meet the vote acquisition of at least 4 percent of the national number of valid votes in the DPRD Member Election to be included in determining the seat acquisition for Provincial DPRD members.

For DPRD at the regency / city level, it must meet the 3 percent threshold of the number of valid votes nationally in the General Election for DPRD members to be included in the determination of seat acquisition for Regency / City DPRD members.

Furthermore, the presidential or presidential candidacy threshold is at least 20 percent of the number of DPR seats or obtaining 25 percent of the national valid votes of political parties or coalitions of political parties in the previous DPR elections.