The Center for Electoral Reforms (Cetro) said the big parties wanted to maintain the status quo by proposing to increase the parliamentary threshold and electoral districts in a limited revision of the 2008 legislative election law.

The institution was suspicious that a conspiracy among the big parties was behind the proposed increase of the threshold from 2.5 percent to 5 percent and electoral districts from 77 to about 100.

“The higher threshold would close the door for small parties to represent their constituents. Their political aspirations at the House of Representatives and the seats they would have won would be taken instead by the bigger parties.

“Had the 5 percent parliamentary threshold been implemented in the April 2009 legislative elections, Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party would have grabbed 178 seats in the House while the National Awakening Party [PKB] would have gotten none. Despite earning 19 million votes, 4 percent, they would have had no representation,” he said. With the current 2.5 percent threshold, the Democratic Party only earned 148 seats.

The Golkar Party, the Democratic Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) have proposed an increase to the threshold and the electoral districts in an effort to have a simpler multi-party system and improve the legitimacy of House members.

Nurul Arifin, a Golkar legislator and member of the House Commission II that is preparing the law revision, said her party and the PDI-P would fight for the proposed 5 percent threshold and the increase in the electoral districts to create a more effective government in 2014.

She said the two parties would also propose an open proportional system with more electoral districts to make closer ties between legislators and their constituents.

Sucipto, a Democratic Party legislator, said his faction would lobby all other factions to accept 4 percent in a political compromise, adding that the big ones should meet the small ones halfway.

The revision bill proposes a 4 percent vote tally for the parliamentary threshold in the House, provincial legislative councils and regental and municipal legislatures, and requires strict requirements for electoral districts with hope that five to seven parties will be represented at the House.

It also allows the General Election Commission (KPU) to hold electronic voting in regions prepared for such mechanisms.

Ida Fauziah, a PKB legislator and deputy chairperson of the legislative committee, was of the same opinion with Cetro and said the revision of crucial points proposed by the big parties would undermine the democracy and the minority groups in the country.

“There will be no space for minority groups like small religious communities, labor unions and small ethnic groups to have or send their representatives to the House,” said Ida.

In response to the proposal, smaller parties have pursued several strategies, from courting other small parties with a merger proposal, to establishing a confederation of individual parties. National Mandate Party’s Arya Bima said he might seek to revise to the law to accommodate the idea after 2014 elections. PKB splinters have also sought party reconciliation to pass the higher threshold.

Hadar of Cetro warned that the much-tarnished perceptions of political parties and the House left the public skeptical of quality elections ever happening.

“The proposed simplification of the multi-party system is good but in a pluralist nation like this, one should use its wisdom to accommodate the political aspirations of all sides. The effectiveness of a government depends not only on its parliamentary system but also on the national leadership style,” Hadar said.

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