Indonesia’s Constitutional Court ruled yesterday that a law setting a minimum threshold of votes for political parties to nominate a presidential candidate was not legally binding, opening up a possibility of more competitive future contests.
The nine-judge court ruled 7-2 in favor of four university students who filed a petition challenging the current thresholds. These require a party or coalition of parties to hold 20 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, or to have won 25 percent of the popular vote at the previous legislative election, in order to be eligible to field a presidential candidate.
Chief Justice Suhartoyo granted the petition, saying the threshold “had no binding legal power, according to a Reuters report.
“We found that the threshold tends to benefit big political parties, or at least those with House seats,” Justice Saldi Isra said in the ruling, according to a report in the Jakarta Post. “Not to mention that in previous elections, certain political parties dominated the process to nominate candidates, which limited the rights of voters to have alternative candidates.” Saldi added that all political parties should be allowed to nominate a candidate.
According to the Reuters report the court ruling did not specify if the requirement should be abolished or lowered. Instead, it kicked the issue back to the government, which will now be tasked with finding another way to regulate how political parties nominate presidential candidates – one that is not based on shares of House seats or the popular vote.
In their petition challenging the nominating threshold, which they filed shortly after the February election, the students argued that the law unfairly restricted voter rights and diminished the influence of smaller parties. The petition was just one of several seeking to revoke the nominating thresholds.
At last year’s election, just three candidates contested the presidency: eventual victor Prabowo Subianto, former Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, and Anies Baswedan, the former governor of the capital Jakarta, each backed by an unwieldy coalition of political parties.
While the exact details have not yet been finalized, the ruling is likely to allow a wider range of candidates to run for the presidency at the next election in 2029. Indeed, it is likely that each party will now be permitted to nominate a candidate, eliminating at one stroke a complicated process of horse trading that eats up considerable political energy in the run-up to the five-yearly elections.
The Constitutional Court’s decision follows a similar ruling in August that reduced the vote thresholds for threshold for parties to make nominations to regional positions, from 25 percent of the popular vote to between 6.5 and 10 percent, depending on the number of voters registered in the areas in question. This became the subject of considerable public consternation after lawmakers aligned with outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his de facto successor, Prabowo Subianto, attempted to override the Court’s recommended changes. At the regional elections in November, this allowed more competitive elections in places where the broad ruling coalition was expected to run candidates unopposed.
In comments to the Jakarta Post Titi Anggraini, the co-founder of the Association for Elections and Democracy, described the ruling as a “victory” for all Indonesians – one that would benefit both political parties and voters.
“Political parties will have a better chance to nominate presidential candidates, while voters will have more voting options in the elections. This will ensure Indonesia has a more just, equal, and inclusive democracy in the future,” she told the newspaper.
The change highlights the power of the Constitutional Court to enhance the representativeness and openness of Indonesia’s elections. However, given that not all of its recent election-related interventions have been quite so salutary, the emergence of the court as a final arbiter of key procedural questions is something of a double-edged sword.