Only Raise 2 Candidates, PKS No Longer Want 20 Percent Presidential Trend

JAKARTA - Deputy Speaker of the MPR from the PKS Faction, Hidayat Nur Wahid (HNW) admitted that his party wants the threshold for presidential presidential nomination threshold (PT) in the next election to no longer be 20 percent in the draft Election Bill.

According to HNW, the presidential candidate threshold of 20 which has been in effect since the 2014 Presidential Election and the 2019 Presidential Election, he admits, has had many negative impacts.

"With such a large PT, the available candidate choices are increasingly limited, and it is proven that in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections only two pairs of candidates who met the requirements could advance in the presidential election," said HNW in his statement, Tuesday, February 2.

HNW said, the impact of only two candidates seemed to make the people seem forced to choose a limited candidate.

According to him, many public figures were blocked by the presidential threshold, so they could not advance in the political contestation.

Another bad impact, according to him, was polarization among the people as there were only two candidates in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections. Each of the supporters of the presidential candidate became hostile to one another.

"A serious problem that has a long impact with only 2 candidates running as presidential / cawapres candidates is the division in society from the household level to the national scale.

Therefore, PKS wants the presidential threshold to be reduced to 10 to 15 percent. This threshold applied in the 2004 and 2009 elections.

At that time, there were 5 pairs of presidential-cawapres candidates in 2004 and 3 pairs in 2009. After the presidential election, at that time, there was no division in the community such as the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections.

"This happened partly because the size of the PT was agreed upon in a proportional figure. This kind of spirit will fulfill the people's expectation because there are more alternative candidates for leaders, so that the presidential election does not repeat itself as in the two previous presidential elections, "he said.