Needdem: Presidential Threshold Removed Alternatively Choiced Expansion For The People

Illustration of election elections. (Freepik-Rizky Aldiansyah)

JAKARTA - The Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) assesses the abolition of the minimum threshold provisions for the percentage of proposing pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates or presidential thresholds by the Constitutional Court (MK) to realize a more inclusive and equal democracy.

Researcher Needdem Haykal said that the abolition of the presidential threshold was a new milestone in Indonesian democracy because with this decision, every political party has equal rights to nominate the presidential and vice presidential pairs.

"This step is expected not only to strengthen the principle of equality, but also to open up a fairer and more inclusive political competition space, prevent the public from polarizing, and expand alternative choices for the Indonesian people," Haykal said as confirmed in Jakarta, Thursday, January 2, quoted by Antara.

However, he said, the challenges of implementation must still be anticipated properly.

According to him, the Government, the House of Representatives (DPR), the General Elections Commission (KPU), and all stakeholders must ensure that the changes to the rules can be integrated into the electoral system which is accommodated through the revision of the Election Law (UU) which is currently included in the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas).

With the revision of the Election Law which has been included in the 2025 Prolegnas, he hopes that the DPR and the Government will use the Constitutional Court's decision as the basis for designing the new election rules.

"Perludem believes that this decision opens the way for the creation of a healthier, more competitive, and inclusive democracy in Indonesia," he said.

For this reason, he continued, Needdem invites the entire community to support the implementation of the decision and encourages the Government and political parties to commit to creating a political system that upholds the right to vote and is chosen as a form of people's sovereignty.

Thus, he emphasized that the decision was not only an end, but rather the beginning of a long struggle towards a better democracy for the Indonesian people.

The Constitutional Court through Decision Number 62/PUU-XXII/2024 decided that the norm of Article 222 of Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections is contrary to the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia and does not have binding legal force.

This means that the decision officially removes the presidential threshold by 20 percent of the national valid votes or 25 percent of the DPR seats to nominate presidential and vice presidential candidates.

The decision marks a historic step in Indonesia's democratic journey, providing a greater opportunity for political parties participating in the election to nominate presidential-vice presidential pairs without a threshold that has been considered problematic.

The presidential threshold provisions have been tested for material to the Constitutional Court more than 30 times in the past decade, but have always been rejected despite differences of opinion among the Constitutional Court judges.

In various previous decisions, the majority of judges tended to support the sustainability of this rule as an open legal policy (open law policy) from the legislators.

But today, there is a shift in the position of the judge's view considering the current democratic situation.

The Constitutional Court now considers that maintaining the threshold for presidential candidacy is unconstitutional because it is against the political rights of citizens.