The Constitutional Court's Decision Is Late In The Cause Of The Empty Box Pilkada Still Rising

JAKARTA - Political observer of UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, Bakir Ihsan, assessed that the late Constitutional Court (MK) issued Decision Number 60/PUU-XXII/2024 as one of the reasons for the rampant elections in empty boxes in 2024.

The Constitutional Court's decision is known to have cut the threshold for regional head candidacy in the range of 6-10 percent according to the population in the area from the previous 25 percent of political party votes or 20 percent of seat achievement in the DPRD.

"For me it (the Constitutional Court's decision) was released late. Political parties do not have enough time to find the candidates to be promoted, and they have already collaborated to carry the sole candidate," he said, Sunday, September 8, 2024.

On the other hand, there are still many empty box regional elections in 2024 which also show the failure of regeneration or leadership recruitment within political parties. Not to mention, said Bakir, there are still many political parties that implement political pragmatism, where they prefer to support potential candidates who win rather than struggle to carry their own cadres.

There are still many political parties in Indonesia who are reluctant to function as leadership recruitment. But, more to the stalls. They only provide a place for external candidates," he added.

He emphasized that the Pilkada of empty boxes will worsen democratic conditions at the regional level because it eliminates healthy competitions while limiting public choices to their candidate leaders. This will cause the public to be apathy to the election administration and are reluctant to come to polling stations in the future.

"This is an irony, because as a large nation it turns out that there are limited, even very limited candidates, while there are very many potentials. This is back to the seriousness of political parties to carry out regeneration and recruitment to bring out the best cadres as candidates for leaders," Bakir said.