T

he legislative election may be over, but there are questions left unanswered. The ultimate question is apparently why the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) did not win the number of votes that some public opinion polls had predicted before the election. Was the '€œJokowi effect'€ simply not there or are there other plausible explanations?

Cyrus Network-CSIS'€™ quick count found that the PDI-P won the legislative election with 18.95 percent of the vote, ahead of the Golkar Party and the Gerindra Party with 14.33 percent and 11.79 percent, respectively. Hope was high that the PDI-P would win by a wider margin of up to 27 percent so that it could be less dependent on nominating Jakarta Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo as its presidential candidate.

The law restricts the presidential race to parties or coalition of parties that secure 25 percent of the popular vote or 20 percent of House of Representatives seats. Dependency is an issue given that it affects the ability of a president-elect to form a Cabinet of his or her preference. If a party relies on other parties to meet the threshold, then for sure it has to accommodate its coalition partners in the form of ministerial posts, reducing the chance of forming a professional Cabinet.

There are at least three possible explanations as to why the PDI-P did not win by the expected wide margin. First, as a matter of fact, the PDI-P managed to increase its vote share from 14 percent in the 2009 election. It is an electoral achievement in itself given the fact that the party has consistently played the role of opposition party for the last two electoral cycles, after losing the 2004 and 2009 elections.

Regarding the Jokowi effect, it has to be noted that the election involved approximately 200,000 legislative candidates across Indonesia from all political parties trying to secure seats in the House and regional legislatures. Therefore, the Jokowi effect might have been offset by the individual campaigns run by these legislative candidates across the country who had to fight a hard campaign against candidates from both the party and other parties.

Second, related to the first, it may also be that voters were able to split their votes for legislative and presidential elections. Jokowi remains the strongest presidential candidate but the voters would want to remain loyal to their respective parties. If this is true, it is in itself a good sign for Indonesian politics as it has started to see the formation of party loyalty or party ID, which was missing in the previous election.

Theoretically speaking, a stable democracy needs a stable or at least a less volatile party preference from the electorate. Stable party preference among voters would result in more predictable policy preference of the political parties both at the legislative and executive branches of power simply because the parties would not want to deviate from their voters'€™ policy preference. Regardless, a divided legislature may or may not be good in a presidential system. A divided legislature is good for checks and balances, but may hinder the governing capacity of the president.

Third, it was expected before election day that the Jokowi effect would increase PDI-P votes, given Jokowi'€™s soaring popularity and electability rating in the past few months. Looking back at the 2009 election when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) ran for reelection, one would notice one particular fact that SBY in the 2009 election was a stronger presidential candidate than Jokowi in the 2014 election. Various public opinion surveys three months before the 2009 legislative election found that SBY had a convenient level of electability that hovered around 60 percent while Jokowi'€™s electability rating in the same period of three months in 2014 was about 30 percent.

 Yet, SBY'€™s Democratic Party '€œonly'€ won about 21 percent of the vote, a significant jump from about 7 percent in the 2004 election. With half of the electoral strength compared to that of SBY'€™s in 2009, it is then understandable that Jokowi'€™s electoral strength in 2014 would not bring the same effect as that of SBY in 2009 and therefore the PDI-P would win less than 21 percent.

Things became more complicated for the PDI-P as it is also possible that Jokowi'€™s soaring popularity triggered an unnecessary high degree of complacency among PDI-P legislative candidates. This in turn made them ease off with their own campaigns. It is publicly well-known that in 2009, many of the elected members of the national and local legislatures from SBY'€™s party were themselves surprised as they benefited from the incumbent president'€™s high popularity that eventually helped the party triple its votes.

Although we have to wait until the result of official vote count, a PDI-P win is good news for Indonesia'€™s democracy. It sends a crystal-clear message to all political players in the country that the only path to political power is through electoral means. The PDI-P was in power before it lost the 2004 election and now has come back only after winning the election.

The PDI-P'€™s leadership has taught a great lesson to other political parties that to be an opposition party is an option. By doing so, it has been able to consolidate and reap the benefits in 2014. If all political players heeded the lesson from the PDI-P, then electoral democracy would indeed be the only game in town.

The next pertinent question for the leaders of political parties who '€œlost'€ the 2014 legislative election: Are they ready to not be part of the next government and play the role of opposition for the next five years?

The writer is head of the department of politics and international relations at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta. He led the Cyrus-CSIS quick count and exit polls conducted after the April 9 election.