Hadar Gumay, a political observer from the Center for Electoral Reform, blasted seven major and medium-sized parties in the House of Representatives for seeking to increase the parliamentary threshold from 2.5 to 5 percent, which would effectively exile small parties from the House.

The seven parties, who each control between 5 and 21 percent of the House’s 560 seats, will collaborate on a planned revision of the 2008 law on political parties and legislative elections. The government is currently working on a draft revision.

The two smallest parties in the House — the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) — are the only opponents of the proposal.

The major parties argue that a higher parliamentary threshold is needed to simplify the country’s multi-party system and ensure more effective government, Hadar said.

The argument is weak and more influential factors, such as the political maturity of the politicians and the assertiveness of party leaders, determine the effectiveness of the governance, Hadar added.

“Will we reach the goal [of more effective government] by continually increasing the threshold? This is a flawed assumption. Yet if we do so, we will surely disrupt our representation system and democracy,” he added.

There were 19 million wasted votes last year, worth 15 legislative seats that ended up being distributed among nine parties that made it to the House because of the 2.5 percent parliamentary threshold, he said.

“Had the 5 percent threshold been applied last year, there could have been 32 million wasted votes for 45 seats. Imagine how low our representation level would be. There would be a large number of inappropriately represented people.”

The National Mandate Party’s (PAN) proposal of a “political party confederation” to accommodate the small parties at the House is worthy of support, he added.

The beginning of the reform era in Indonesia was marked by the participation of 48 parties in the 1999 legislative elections, which was a dramatic increase from the three parties that operated under the New Order regime.

The 1999 Election Law provided for a 2 percent electoral threshold for House representation, which has been amended twice for the 2004 and 2009 legislative elections.

The 2003 law on legislative elections increased the legislative threshold to 3 percent, which forced many small parties out of the 2004 legislative elections and cut the number of participating parties in half to 24.

The 2008 law on legislative elections law stipulated a 3 percent electoral threshold and a separate 2.5 percent parliamentary threshold.

Arbi Sanit, a political expert from University of Indonesia (UI) supports the seven-party proposal and suggested a higher threshold that would effectively create two House factions.

Parties should set aside their differences and consolidate to form two big factions at the House, the one supporting the government and one the opposition, to foster political stability, he added.

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