P

rolonged debates concerning a legislative threshold (PT) between medium-size and big political parties are truly a paradox.

The government’s proposal to increase the threshold to 4 percent, up from the current 2.5 percent, has only gained support from three major parties — the Democratic Party, Golkar Party and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) — which combined, received less than 50 percent of the vote in 2009, but dominate the House of Representatives (DPR) with nearly 62 percent of seats.

The medium-and small-size parties have strong grounds to fear the higher threshold. If deliberation of the issue reaches a deadlock, major parties stand a good chance of winning a vote in the House to pass revisions to the 2008 political party law which justifies the new threshold.

If this happens, there will emerge a tyranny of parties, which will be visible in aspects. First, large parties do not want to treat small-and medium-size parties equally. There will be marginalization of the rights of smaller parties, especially those that fail to meet the designated threshold.

Second, big parties have joined forces to defying the voices of small- and medium-size parties. The domination of big parties in the ongoing discourse over legislative threshold increase has stretched small-and medium-size parties to the limit.

The rationale underpinning big parties desires to increase the threshold — to create an effective government — is too easy to challenge. The frequent incidents of tension among government coalition members under the Joint Secretariat (Setgab) in connection with certain policies have provided evidence of the vulnerability of this logic judgment.

Political interests are the true motives behind moves to raise the threshold. The new threshold is a camouflage for big parties to keep their hegemony intact.

Consequently, small-size and possibly some medium-size parties will bear the brunt of any increase in the legislative threshold. There will be a simplification of party system, which may endanger their existence. Moreover, this higher threshold will change the voters’ behavior in ways that are advantageous to big parties.

A study conducted by Kenneth M. Roberts and Erik Wibbels (1999) in Latin American countries demonstrated that reductions in the number of parties impacted electoral volatility. The change indeed benefited big parties due to the limited number of parties participating in the electoral competition.

Party system simplification will reduce the degree of volatility. People do not have many alternatives to choose from in voting in accordance with their aspirations. Once established, this system can maintain big parties’ domination.

The simplification of the party system will indirectly lead to the establishment of partisan voter identities, centering on big parties.

Such simplification gives advantages to big parties as they can endorse a limited pool of leadership figures. However, the limited number of parties may restrict emergence of promising alternative leaders. Thus, contests among leaders are less competitive compared to those in the multiparty system.

Lastly, a higher legislative threshold will sooner or later reduce the influence of sociopolitical factors in voter choice. This policy will in turn minimize social cleavages. Small-size religious-, ethnical- and professional-based parties will no longer be relevant to voters.

Peter Mair (1997) supports this explanation based on Western European experiences. Party system simplification has transformed inter-party competition, and it has driven the change of government formation.

Simple party systems generate a limited number of dominant parties. This domination, then, can foster a broad role of particular party in determining policy choices and government processes. These parties are powerful and decisive in the strategic policy-making processes.

The tyranny of big parties will also be felt at the local level, with small local parties experiencing the same problems facing their patrons at the national level. They face potential losses in their chances to win seats in the provincial and district legislative councils.

Likewise in the regional elections (pilkada), small-size parties will suffer from lost opportunities to challenge the domination of big parties. Successful stories of small-size parties’ alliance in winning pilkada will soon vanish.

Worse, women’s representation in the legislative council will come under a serious threat. Female legislative candidates will face elimination from party lists, despite the mandatory 30 percent quota for female candidates in elections, as big parties tend not to accommodate women’s interests.

The threshold increase will also hinder the chance of parties with pro-women platforms to thrive. At the same time, existing parties lack adequate strength to challenge male-dominated parties, and unless this condition is changed, it will maintain political discourses that are less sensitive to the women’s interests.

In conclusion, the legislative threshold increase will shift Indonesian political system massively.

The writer is a lecturer of the political science department at Brawijaya University in Malang. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.