Opening Opportunities For DPR Political Parties Can Carry Presidential Candidates, Presidential Threshold Sued At MK

The preliminary examination hearing related to the judicial review of the presidential nomination threshold in the Election Law at the Constitutional Court, Jakarta, Wednesday, August 7, 2024. (ANTARA-Fath Putra Mulya)

JAKARTA - A electoral expert from the University of Indonesia (UI), Titi Anggraini, sued the presidential threshold or the presidential nomination threshold to the Constitutional Court (MK).

The former chairman of the Needdem sued Article 222 of Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning Elections with the Executive Director of the Democracy Network and Integrity Election Foundation (NETGRIT), Hadar Nafis Gumay. Both tested the constitutionality of the article because it was considered not to provide justice for political parties participating in elections who did not have seats in parliament.

"The petitioners provide alternative options regarding the threshold setting for presidential candidacy which can be used as a donation to the Court in deciding the case," said one of the applicants' attorneys, Sandy Yudha Pratama Hulu, at the preliminary examination hearing at the Plenary Court Session Room, Jakarta, Wednesday, August 7, which was confiscated by Antara.

The petitioners provide alternative arrangements for presidential nomination thresholds that are no longer based on the mathematical calculation of the number of seats and votes obtained by political parties in the previous election.

In this case, they proposed two models of setting the presidential nomination threshold.

First, political parties that have seats in the DPR are given the right to propose pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates without being subject to a nomination threshold.

"This means that every political party that has succeeded in crossing the parliamentary threshold in the previous election has the right to propose a pair of presidential and vice presidential candidates," added Sandy.

Second, non-parlementary political parties and political parties that have just become election participants are subject to a presidential nomination threshold of at least 20 percent of the total political party participating in the election.

"This means that the presidential nomination threshold imposed on non-parliamentary political parties and political parties that have just participated in the election is not the result of the previous election," said Sandy.

Non-parliamentary political parties and those who have just participated in the election can propose a pair of presidential and vice presidential candidates by combining themselves into a group of proposing parties, which amounts to at least 20 percent of the current number of political parties participating in the election.

The determination of the 20 percent threshold for non-parlementary political parties and political parties that have just participated in the election is taken from the current norm (existing norm) which has been used since the 2009 presidential election.

"(Pilpres) 2009, 2014, 2019, 2024, four times the figure is always 20 percent, but we reconstruct it: not from seats, but from the number of political parties," Titi said outside the courtroom.

According to the petitioners, there is a difference in the design of the threshold arrangement between parliamentary and non-parliamentary political parties in accordance with the establishment of the Constitutional Court in the previous decision that parliamentary and non-parliamentary political parties can be treated unequally.

In its petitum, Hadar and Titi asked the Constitutional Court to interpret Article 222 of the Election Law as "A pair of candidates proposed by a political party or coalition of political parties participating in the election who have seats in the DPR and/or a combination of political parties participating in the election who do not have seats in the DPR, which is at least 20 percent (twenty percent) of all political parties participating in the election for members of the DPR."

In addition, the petitioners also submitted an alternative petitum which in essence so that candidate pairs can be proposed by political parties and/or coalitions of political parties participating in the election who have seats in the DPR and proposed by a combination of political parties that do not have seats in the DPR with a threshold set by the legislators.

The inaugural trial of case Number 101/PUU-XXII/2024 was chaired by Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Suhartoyo accompanied by Constitutional Justices M. Guntur Hamzah and Arsul Sani. At the end of the trial, Suhartoyo gave time for the petitioners to correct their petition until August 20, 2024.