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Golkar eyes reforms in election system
Determined to win the next legislative and presidential elections, the Golkar Party, currently the second-largest party at the House of Representatives, aims to revise the 2017 Elections Law in a bid to improve its chances of achieving its target
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span>Determined to win the next legislative and presidential elections, the Golkar Party, currently the second-largest party at the House of Representatives, aims to revise the 2017 Elections Law in a bid to improve its chances of achieving its target.
Incumbent chairman Airlangga Hartarto, who is expected to secure his reelection and lead the party for the next five years, said Golkar must be the biggest political party in the 2024 legislative race so it could have its own presidential candidate.
He said 2024 was the right opportunity for the party to restore its glory, as there would be no incumbent presidential candidate seeking reelection.
To achieve this end, Airlangga said the party should push several key revisions in the Elections Law, including the separation of legislative and presidential elections.
“We have to fight for a revision of the general election law to separate the presidential and legislative elections,” he said during his speech at the party's national congress on Wednesday.
The country had the legislative and presidential elections on the same day this year, which mean that political parties had to support presidential candidates based on their electoral results in the 2014 general election.
This gave the advantage to political parties that did well five years earlier, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which supported President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's reelection bid.
Other parties, including Golkar, had little to no choice but to follow the lead of the ruling party.
The 2009 race was the last time Golkar had its own presidential candidate, former vice president Jusuf Kalla, who later lost to then-incumbent Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Once undefeated as former strongman Soeharto's party during the New Order era, Golkar finished third in the legislative race this year, securing 12.31 percent of the vote. The PDI-P and the Gerindra Party came in first and second, respectively, in terms of number of votes.
However, Golkar later secured 85 seats in the House, the second-largest number and more than Gerindra, thanks to the Sainte-Laguë method that works in favor of larger parties.
Golkar has also faced many hurdles in the past five years, including the arrest and corruption conviction of former chairman Setya Novanto in relation to the procurement of e-ID cards at the Home Ministry.
Golkar executive Ahmad Doli Kurnia, who is also chairman of the House Commission II overseeing home affairs, said the party would add the Elections Law revision into the House's 2020 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas).
Ahmad added that the party would also support a change to the existing open-list proportional voting system, which made legislative candidates compete with their fellow party members for votes. Golkar is aiming to return to the closed-list system, in which voters choose a political party instead of directly voting for a candidate.
“We think the closed-list system would be favorable for Golkar and support our 2024 mission,” Ahmad said.
Golkar executives from across Indonesia have also voiced their support for Airlangga's candidacy in the 2024 presidential election. This includes politician and lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo, who had earlier attempted to challenge Airlangga for chairmanship.
“We want to have a candidate from Golkar. We were able to be the second-biggest party [in the House] by supporting Jokowi. Why not trying to push for another party member? Airlangga is capable and experienced enough,” he said.
Bambang, who is also People's Consultative Assembly speaker, decided to withdraw from the race at the last minute on Tuesday and support Airlangga's reelection.
Golkar Party ethics board deputy chairman Akbar Tandjung said Golkar's top priority was to gain more votes in the next general election, so it could endorse a presidential candidate as winner of the legislative election.
Akbar has frequently said Golkar should hold a convention to look for a presidential candidate.
"We will talk about it later. If we discuss it now, we could lose our focus. We should first focus on the main issue, which is to increase our votes."
He reminded party officials to embrace Bambang's supporters to avoid conflict ahead of the election. “They should be given a position in party management, but it has to be objective — that person must be capable. This is a must to maintain the party's solidarity.”
