Breakthrough for the 2029 Elections: Small Parties Can Unite, Voters' Votes Are No Longer Wasted

JAKARTA - The debate on the parliamentary threshold or parliamentary threshold has again received a new perspective from academics.

The doctoral promotion session at the Faculty of Law, Trisakti University, Rani Purwanti Kemalasari, offers the idea of reconstructing the parliamentary threshold arrangement which is considered capable of balancing the need for simplification of the political system with the principles of popular sovereignty and justice in political representation.

Through his dissertation entitled "Reconstruction of the Parliamentary Threshold Regulation in the Law on Elections Based on People's Sovereignty and Justice", Rani thoroughly examines the position of the parliamentary threshold in the Indonesian electoral system, from the philosophical basis, implementation, to the ideal formulation that can be applied ahead of the 2029 Elections.

According to Rani, who is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Mercubuana University, Indonesia as a democratic country based on the principle of popular sovereignty as stipulated in Article 1 paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution carries out sovereignty through the mechanism of representative democracy, one of which is through general elections.

Since the reform era of 1998, Indonesia has consistently implemented a proportional election system with a multi-party system that opens up space for broad political participation.

However, the multi-party system also presents a challenge in the form of political fragmentation in parliament which has the potential to affect the effectiveness of the government.

To answer this question, the law-makers introduced the parliamentary threshold as an instrument to simplify the political system and strengthen the presidential system.

"Conceptually, the parliamentary threshold has a strategic function to support government stability, strengthen the presidential system, and increase the effectiveness of parliamentary work," said Rani in his presentation.

However, the results of the research show that the implementation of the parliamentary threshold also raises a number of issues that have an impact on the quality of political representation.

One of them is the phenomenon of wasted votes, which is the valid vote of voters who cannot be converted into DPR seats because the political party chosen does not meet the parliamentary threshold.

According to Rani, this condition has the potential to reduce the meaning of people's sovereignty because not all voter votes can be accommodated in the political representative system.

In addition, he found a discrepancy between the principles of the proportional election system which emphasizes the balance between the acquisition of votes and the allocation of seats with the parliamentary threshold mechanism which limits the conversion of votes into legislative seats.

"This inconsistency has an impact on reducing justice in political representation, which is the main objective of the proportional election system," he said.

Rani also highlighted the issue of legal certainty due to changes in the size of the parliamentary threshold that continue to occur from one election to the next. This dynamic encourages the revision of the Election Law repeatedly and triggers various constitutional tests at the Constitutional Court.

The urgency of reconstructing the parliamentary threshold arrangement has strengthened after the issuance of Constitutional Court Decision Number 116/PUU-XXI/2023. In the decision, the Court stated that the 4 percent parliamentary threshold provision was still constitutional for the 2029 election and beyond, but the law makers were asked to draft a new formulation before the next election was held.

Departing from this mandate, Rani conducted a comparative study of laws against the Philippines, Poland, and Turkey. The results of the study show that the three countries have both implemented parliamentary thresholds to maintain political stability, but balanced them with affirmative mechanisms in the form of electoral coalitions that allow small parties to still have the opportunity to obtain political representation.

"The Philippines, Poland, and Turkey show that the simplification of the party system does not have to sacrifice political representation. The coalition mechanism is able to minimize wasted votes while maintaining the stability of the political system," he said.

Based on these findings, Rani offered a reconstruction of Article 414 of the Election Law while maintaining the parliamentary threshold at 4 percent. However, political parties that do not meet the threshold are given the opportunity to form a coalition with other parties until they reach a minimum cumulative vote of 4 percent nationally.

In his proposal, the formation of a coalition must be made in writing and registered with the General Election Commission (KPU) no later than seven days before the voting day. According to Rani, this model can be a middle ground between the need to maintain government stability and protection of the political rights of citizens.

He explained that the 4 percent figure was still maintained because based on the experience of the 2019 and 2024 elections, it was considered capable of maintaining the goal of simplifying the political system. Meanwhile, the coalition mechanism provides space for small parties to consolidate votes so that the political aspirations they represent still have the opportunity to enter parliament.

"Small parties that do not reach the threshold can still combine their political power so that voter votes do not just disappear and still have the opportunity to be converted into political representation," said Rani.

Through this reconstruction, he hopes that the number of wasted votes can be suppressed without eliminating the function of the parliamentary threshold as an instrument to strengthen the presidential system and the effectiveness of parliament.

In addition, the new formulation is considered to have the potential to strengthen the constitutional resilience of the Election Law against judicial review lawsuits because it offers a more inclusive solution to the problems that have repeatedly occurred in the implementation of elections.

As a recommendation, Rani asked legislators and the government not to remove the parliamentary threshold, but to improve it through the regulation of the coalition mechanism between political parties in the revision of the Election Law.

On the other hand, the KPU is encouraged to prepare clear, transparent, and accountable pre-election coalition technical rules so that they can be effectively implemented ahead of the 2029 Election.

Through this research, Rani not only criticizes the weaknesses of the current regulatory system, but also offers a new model that seeks to bridge the need for political stability with the principles of popular sovereignty and representative justice as the main foundation of Indonesian democracy.