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January 18, 2025 | 03:25 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Deputy Speaker of the Indonesian People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Eddy Soeparno welcomed the proposal to abolish the 4% parliamentary threshold. Eddy argued that the current threshold has resulted in millions of votes being wasted, as not all political parties secure seats in the House of Representatives (DPR) or regional legislatures (DPRD).
Citing examples from the 2024 elections, the National Mandate Party (PAN) politician highlighted the cases of the United Development Party (PPP), which failed to reach the threshold with 3.99% of votes, and the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), which garnered only 3.01%.
“This means that there are voters whose choices were not represented because their parties failed to meet the threshold. Consequently, their votes were essentially lost,” Eddy said in a written statement on Friday, January 17, 2025.
Eddy, a political science doctorate from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Indonesia, noted that 16 million votes were effectively discarded in the 2024 elections due to the parliamentary threshold.
In a scenario where no threshold exists, Eddy suggested, parties with only one or two members in parliament would need to form coalitions. “In parliament, they would have to merge with others and engage in dialogue to establish joint factions,” he said.
Parliament to Discuss Threshold Issues After Recess
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR) Sufmi Dasco Ahmad confirmed that the DPR would address the Constitutional Court's (MK) ruling on the parliamentary threshold after the recess period, which runs from December 6, 2024, to January 20, 2025.
Dasco stated that discussions on the parliamentary threshold would coincide with deliberations on the recently annulled presidential threshold. The MK revoked the presidential threshold in a ruling issued on January 2, 2025.
“Yes, we’ll address it simultaneously,” Dasco told reporters at the MPR/DPR complex in Jakarta on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, in response to questions about the parliamentary threshold discussions.
Omnibus Law to Include Parliamentary Threshold
Deputy Chairman of Commission II of the DPR, Aria Bima, revealed plans to incorporate the parliamentary threshold topic into the omnibus law on political reform. “That’s the plan,” Bima told Tempo on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, adding that discussions would begin after the recess.
The Constitutional Court's decision on February 29, 2024, annulled the 4% parliamentary threshold stipulated in Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Election Law). The court ruled that the provision violated the principles of people’s sovereignty, electoral justice, and constitutional legal certainty.
This landmark ruling, however, will only take effect for the 2029 elections. The court stated that Article 414, Paragraph (1) of the Election Law, which outlines the 4% threshold, remains applicable for the 2024 elections.
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