JAKARTA - Chairman of Commission II of the House of Representatives M. Rifqinizamy Karsayuda emphasized that the parliamentary threshold is an inevitability of a mature democracy.
The parliamentary threshold is also an effort to bring about an institutionalized political system and an effective government.
This was conveyed by Rifqinizamy in response to the proposal to remove the current parliamentary threshold.
According to him, a healthy political party is a party that is institutionalized, has a clear vote base, and a strong ideology. He emphasized that one of the instruments to encourage the strengthening of the institutionalization of political parties is through the implementation of the parliamentary threshold.
"With the parliamentary threshold, political parties are encouraged to improve and strengthen their organizational structure so that they are able to obtain significant vote support in every election," Rifqinizamy told reporters, Friday, January 30.
The NasDem legislator said that in addition to strengthening the institutionalization of the party, the parliamentary threshold is also needed to realize government effectiveness.
"Because there are too many political parties in parliament, there is a potential to create an unhealthy checks and balances mechanism that can hinder the course of government," said Rifqinizamy.
Rifqinizamy admitted that the implementation of the parliamentary threshold had consequences, one of which was that the votes of voters who did not reach the threshold could not be converted into seats in parliament. However, he said, this was part of the process of maturing representative democracy in Indonesia.
"That is the consequence of our desire to mature representative democracy in parliament," he said.
Rifqinizamy assessed that the absolute parliamentary threshold was necessary and even proposed to be above the current threshold of 4 percent. He said that the ideal parliamentary threshold could be in the range of 5 to 7 percent, which is not only applied at the national level, but can also be exercised at the provincial and district/city levels.
"With this system and mechanism, political parties are again encouraged to become institutionalized, the government becomes more effective, and the simplification of political parties will occur naturally," explained the head of the commission which deals with domestic governance and citizenship.
In addition, Rifqinizamy also conveyed the amount of the parliamentary threshold as one of the lists of inventory of problems (DIM) in discussing the Election Bill in Commission II of the DPR.
He reminded the Constitutional Court's decision which gave the law-makers the authority to determine the threshold for the parliament and district magnitude.
"Therefore, Commission II of the DPR RI will simulate and practice various options for the parliamentary threshold in discussing the Election Bill," he concluded.
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