T

he right to nominate a presidential candidate for the 2019 election depends on the 2014 House of Representatives election. This is the quintessence of the new election bill that the House passed Thursday night. One does not need to be an expert in constitutional law and politics, because common sense is enough to understand that this regulation is not only somewhat awkward but has clear undemocratic features.

Five years are a long time in politics, and voter support for political parties might rise or decline quite dramatically. The Indonesian party system is quite stable compared to party systems in other developing countries around the globe. Nevertheless, the results of legislative elections may differ by about 5 to 10 percent.

The Democratic Party, for example, lost 87 of its previous 148 legislative seats in the 2014 elections, whereas Gerindra more than doubled its seats from 26 to 73. First, these examples make it quite evident that voter support for a political party can change quite significantly. Second, these two election results are also clear indicators that in Indonesia, voting behavior in the legislative election is connected with the presidential candidates of the political parties.

The Democratic Party won the 2009 legislative elections not because of a strong party performance or program, but because party chairman Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) was at the peak of his popularity before his reelection as president. Since the presidential term limit prevented a third candidacy, his party lost significantly in the 2014 elections.

Another case in point is Gerindra, which raised its legislative election result to a great extent because its chairman Prabowo Subianto ran for the presidency in the presidential elections in 2014. It would have been unfair if one takes the high number of seats for PD in 2009 as the basis for the right to nominate another candidate than SBY in the 2014 presidential elections. The same holds true for Prabowo who enjoyed a high degree of popularity as a presidential candidate in 2014, but under the new election law the basis for his candidacy would be only the poor 2009 legislative election result of Gerindra.

The so-called presidential threshold is already questionable since it is clearly to the disadvantage of popular candidates who lack support of one big or many small parties, but favors presidential candidates proposed by successful parties or by candidates who are able to form coalitions with many small parties.

The pre-condition of having support from members of the legislature for a presidential candidacy contradicts the principle of separation of powers. The legitimacy of the president thus not only derives from the majority of the votes in the presidential election, but also from the political parties in the House who picked him or her as presidential candidate.

Indeed, it would be more democratic if there would be no such strict limitations on proposing presidential candidates, as voters deserve to have options that may be different from that of the major political parties.

However, for practical reasons a limitation of the number of presidential candidates makes sense. The question is therefore not so much if a so-called presidential threshold is legitimate, but rather on what kind of basis the presidential threshold is determined. In so far, the regulation that the legislative election result in March 2014 is the main reason for the right of political parties and coalitions to nominate a presidential candidate is highly questionable.

Some observers argued that the ruling coalition in the House has found a way to reduce competition for incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in the 2019 presidential elections. This does not seem to be true. If each of the opposition parties does not nominate its own candidate, but if they are forced to agree on a single candidate, the challenger for Jokowi might probably be more powerful. This possible effect seems to have not been considered by the parties of the government coalition.

The main problem of the new election law is a typical one for Indonesia’s political system. The rules for elections, which are a central element for the quality of the country’s democracy, are changed every five years before the next general elections. Such kinds of electoral laws are not made for general reasons but are made ad-hoc to suit the short-term interests of the political actors involved.

Under such conditions, the political legitimacy of the general elections is seriously undermined.
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The writer is visiting professor at the Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.