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n a move to improve the equal participation of political parties, factions at the House of Representatives have proposed eliminating the presidential threshold for the 2019 presidential election. Such a move would allow more parties to propose candidates.

The Gerindra Party, the leader of opposition camp, as well as the National Awakening Party (PKB), National Mandate Party (PAN) and Hanura Party are the parties that want to erase the threshold.

They argue that because the presidential election will be held on the same day as legislative elections, there is no reason for a benchmark to nominate a presidential ticket.

“The elimination of the presidential threshold is for the sake of equality and fairness because all parties, including the new ones, have their own [targeted] voters,” Gerindra executive Sufmi Dasco Ahmad told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

The election bill will merge four election-related laws, comprising Law No. 15/2011 on election organizers, Law No. 8/2012 on legislative elections, Law No. 42/2008 on the presidential election and Law No. 2/2008 on political parties.

The current Presidential Election Law, made at a time when legislative and presidential elections were months apart, requires political parties to win 20 percent of seats or 25 percent of the popular vote in the legislative election to field a presidential candidate.

In the previous elections, the benchmark privileged the winners of legislative elections to have a better bargaining position for naming candidates and later forming coalitions with parties with a smaller number of votes.

In 2014, no party reached 20 percent. The winning party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), only garnered 18.9 percent and thus no party could stand on their own to propose presidential candidates. They had to form a coalition.

But since the legislative and presidential election will run simultaneously in 2019, some parties see a presidential threshold as irrelevant.

If the threshold is zero percent and any party can name a candidate, as a consequence there may be more presidential candidates on election day.

Beside the 10 parties from the previous elections, at least three new parties — the United Indonesian Party (Perindo), the Peaceful and Benign Islam (Idaman) Party and the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) — will also be able to name candidates.

Perindo aims to propose its chairman Hary Tanoesoedibjo, a media mogul, to run in the 2019 presidential contest.

Existing parties that currently have no seats in the House, like the Crescent Star Party (PBB) and the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI), may be able to propose presidential candidates.

“We’re ready with zero percent and ready to welcome even 15 presidential candidates. All parties will have a chance to propose their candidates, because the real battle is in the hands of the people,” said PKB executive Lukman Edy.

PAN and Gerindra also have seats on the committee’s leadership board, positions that enable them to control and direct the deliberation.

The PDI-P has insisted that the threshold should stand at 20 percent.

“This is about the selectivity and quality of the process. The higher the benchmark, the more selective and qualified it is,” said PDI-P faction deputy chairman Hendrawan Supratikno.

The NasDem Party believes the benchmark is still important to prevent too many candidates from running and too much money from being wasted.

“The threshold is still accepted by the voters. New parties can join existing ones if they want to propose candidates,” said NasDem executive Johnny G. Platte.