TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
House considers new omnibus law to revise election rules
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Democracy in action: An inmate has his finger inked after casting his ballot for the 2024 presidential and legislative elections at a polling station in a prison in Banda Aceh, Aceh, on Feb. 14, 2024. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
T
he House of Representatives will decide whether to press ahead with a plan to overhaul the electoral system altogether using a sweeping omnibus legislative method later this month, following a court order to introduce a new way to regulate how political parties nominate presidential candidates.
The Constitutional Court annulled last week a stipulation in the General Elections Law mandating a steep minimum threshold of winning either 25 percent of the popular vote or 20 percent of House seats in the previous legislative election for a political party or a group of parties to be eligible to field a presidential candidate, as it was contrary to the 1945 Constitution.
The court’s ruling essentially gives all political parties an equal chance to nominate a candidate, restoring hope for more competitive elections after mounting criticism over the presidential election threshold, which limited the electoral field and in turn restricted the rights to vote and to run for election.
The bench also instructed policymakers to find another way to regulate the nomination process, specifically to prevent big political parties from dominating elections, as well as an excessive number of candidates.
The House is currently in recess and will resume deliberation in mid-January.
Deputy House Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said lawmakers would begin discussing ways to regulate how political parties nominate presidential candidates and whether they would use the omnibus method to revise all prevailing laws governing the general and regional head elections, after lawmakers return from recess.
"We have not decided whether [the court-ordered changes] will be implemented through a revision to the General Elections Law or an omnibus [method]," Dasco, a politician from President Prabowo Subianto’s own Gerindra Party, said on Tuesday.
