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PSI, PKS claim big wins for Jakarta council
The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is claiming to have strengthened its grip on Jakarta’s political scene, while the newcomer Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) is announcing it is confident it would finish in the top four in the battle for seats on the city council (DPRD)
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span>The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is claiming to have strengthened its grip on Jakarta’s political scene, while the newcomer Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) is announcing it is confident it would finish in the top four in the battle for seats on the city council (DPRD).
The PSI, which according to quick counts by some credible pollsters would not send any members to the House of Representatives after failing to pass the 4 percent legislative threshold, said the party would secure up to 8 percent of the vote for Jakarta’s City Council.
The 2017 General Election Law stipulates that parties must get at least 4 percent of the vote nationally to get into the House. However, the law also stipulates that all political parties participating in a general election would be counted for legislative council (DPRD) seats at the provincial and regional levels.
The PSI’s argument is based on quick counts from pollsters, such as Charta Politika, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Indo Barometer, which found that the party won 6.9 to 8.1 percent of the vote for the House, putting it among the top four parties in Jakarta, after the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the PKS and Gerindra.
If their official votes confirm that figure, the party would probably get more than five of the 106 seats on the City Council, which would be sufficient to form a faction.
Although no pollsters have released specific quick counts for the DPRD level, the head of the PSI’s Jakarta chapter, Michael Victor Sianipar, said he believed the number of votes it received would not be far different from the figure for the House.
“Historically, it’s always been like that. Most voters support the candidates from the same parties on the House and DPRD levels,” he said, comparing the results from the 2014 and 2009 elections.
“So, in the worst-case scenario we will get about 6 percent, which is still high.”
Billing itself as the party for millennials that promises to promote tolerance and anticorruption efforts, the PSI makes its presence count in urban areas, such as Jakarta, and online.
The party is also well received by overseas voters, quick counts showed.
Many of its members are young politicians who jumped into politics after being inspired by former Jakarta governor Basuki “BTP” Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok, who is both loathed and loved for his outspokenness.
Michael, for instance, had worked at City Hall for more than five years, when Ahok was still in charge.
“Our presence will add another color to the DPRD. We will develop an [online] application that will enable the public to monitor and rate our performance at the council. Hopefully, it will inspire other parties to improve
their transparency,” he said, pledging to make the party a constructive opposition to the administration of Governor Anies Baswedan.
The party is committed to walk the talk, Michael said, as it aims to prove its quality to the public as part of its efforts to ensure it would enter the House in the next legislative elections.
Meanwhile, PKS, which is part of a coalition that backed Anies in the 2017 gubernatorial election, is paving its way to overtake Gerindra as the second largest party on City Council, according to the party’s top executive.
“We can’t calculate the exact figure as of yet, but we can say that the trend is increasing. Based on our observations, our votes are increasing in Jakarta,” PKS Jakarta Sharia council head Abdurrahman Suhaimi said.
“It seems that our campaign to remove the expiry date on driver’s licenses and abolish annual taxes for motorbikes is well received,” he added.
The PKS, which is seen as the most conservative of all Islam-based parties, secured 11 seats on Jakarta City Council after getting 424,400 votes in the 2014 election, 9.4 percent of total votes. For the House, the party secured 11 percent in Jakarta.
Quick counts published by Charta Politika suggests that the party would get 18.29 percent of the House votes in Jakarta, the biggest percentage after the PDI-P, which got 21.47 percent.
Yunarto Wijaya, executive director of Charta Politika, however, said that statistically the number of votes for the House does not necessarily mirror the number of votes for a DPRD.
