Colluding to Circumvent the Election - Tempo.co English
Parties in the ruling coalition are maneuvering to get around a Constitutional Court ruling. They seek to monopolize presidential nominations.
THE political parties’ proposal of a higher parliamentary threshold reflects the underhanded behavior of elites seeking to entrench their power. Through this maneuver, they collude to erect barriers that prevent leadership turnover, even though one of the fundamental purposes of elections is to produce alternative candidates for leadership.
This scheme became apparent when the coalition of political parties supporting President Prabowo Subianto, led by the Gerindra Party, proposed raising the parliamentary threshold from 4 percent in the previous election to 5 percent. Some government-supporting parties have also proposed an additional requirement for presidential nominations: candidates must be backed by two to three parties that are participating in the election. This strategy can easily be considered as a way for major parties to maintain their monopoly over presidential nominations.
The additional requirement for presidential nominations contradicts the Constitutional Court’s ruling requiring a zero percent presidential threshold. The court also called on lawmakers to revise the 4 percent parliamentary threshold before the 2029 General Election. The ruling came in response to the large number of wasted votes in previous elections.
Raising the parliamentary threshold creates disproportionality. Millions of votes are lost because they fail to be converted into seats in parliament. In the 2024 General Election, with a 4 percent threshold alone, around 17.3 million votes did not result in parliamentary seats. Five years earlier, the figure was around 13.6 million.
One of the essences of inclusive democracy is not to disregard a single vote produced through the electoral process. Under the one person, one vote principle, every vote—as an expression of each citizen’s political will—should be valued because each carries equal weight. No voter’s ballot should be disregarded, lost, or manipulated because of their social identity.
Efforts to abolish the parliamentary or presidential nomination threshold have always hit a wall. Parties in the House of Representatives have never been willing to remove barriers that would allow alternative candidates from outside the elite to enter the contest. The Constitutional Court ruling seeks to tear down that wall. But political parties are reluctant to implement it.
This is what is known as legislative inaction, a situation in which lawmakers consciously and collectively choose not to perform their legislative function, even when there is a constitutional mandate to do so. Besides undermining public trust, manipulating rules to benefit certain groups will turn elections into tools for legitimizing power.
Years of collusion among political cartels have stalled circulation within the elites. Parties that should be competing, instead work together to maintain access to power and state resources. They share the same interest: preserving a political structure that benefits the elite.
By manipulating election rules, the old elite can limit opportunities for challengers from outside their circle. As a result, elections do not truly offer a transfer of power. Circulation of the elites, in the words of Italian sociologist and philosopher Vilfredo Pareto, becomes merely a rotation among the same elite groups, rather than the entry of new groups with fresh ideas into government. As a result, democracy loses its function of renewal.
Raising the parliamentary threshold also runs counter to epistemic justice in elections. The restriction erases the political representation of groups that receive support but fail to reach the minimum percentage. Electoral perceptions become skewed because parliament represents only groups that have met the threshold.
President Prabowo Subianto’s desire to return direct regional elections to regional legislative councils could also be viewed as an effort to close off opportunities for alternative candidates who could challenge him. By circumventing the Constitutional Court ruling, the maneuver eliminates political equality and public participation and runs counter to the principle of epistemic justice.
Elections are not merely a procedure for replacing governments, but also a means of guaranteeing citizens’ right to vote and be elected without discrimination. Democratic elite circulation depends on inclusive electoral competition. Political elites should stop thinking only of themselves.
