After 36 judicial review mechanisms at the Constitutional Court on the presidential threshold provisions, the Constitutional Court finally ended the debate by declaring unconstitutional toward Article 222 of the Election Laws, stipulating that Presidential Candidate are proposed by political party or a coalition of political parties participating in the election that meet the requirements of obtaining at least 20% of the number of DPR seats or getting 25% of valid votes nationally in the previous DPR member election.
This decision was welcomed with fully joy because it was seen as improving the atmosphere of the presidential election contest to be more democratic and inclusive. In the last few years, 2019, and 2024 elections when PT was implemented caused the choice of presidential candidates to be minimal so that the space for public participation in the election was monopolized and co-opted by large parties that had enough votes to nominate the president and/or vice president. This condition caused obese and transactional coalitions to become commonplace and flourish. Ultimately causing power, such as the division of seats of power between large political parties.
Looking back to abolish PT, this issue had become a significant concern to be repealed when the Constitutional Court decided on the national simultaneous election, namely the simultaneous election of the President and Vice President vis a vis legislative election, because it becomes very irrational when the choice of an election system that combines executive and legislative elections simultaneously but still maintains PT. Moreover, the PT used refers to the legislative election votes 5 years ago, so the basis for its consideration loses correlation with the factual political landscape in the following 5 years.
The implementation of PT indeed fosters the oligarchy practices of prominent political parties and closes the tap for the participation of other political parties to be able to nominate their presidential candidates thus, there is coercion to form a coalition even though the ideology and vision of the party are distinct. In fact, referring to the 1945 Constitution as the supreme law of the law does not require any prerequisites for nominating a presidential candidate as long as it is submitted by a political party and political coalition without a certain percentage. This decision demonstrated as a landmark decision that returns the Constitutional Court to its original purpose, namely as a guardian of democracy and the soul interpreter of the Constitution.
The CC decision is an electoral reform to counter the hegemony of the oligarchy of prominent political parties to dominate democratic practices by closing inclusive participation space. Not only that, this decision opens a competitive democracy because the spirit of democracy is the competition of ideas so that party has the equal competition stage to nominate their presidential candidates.
Djayadi Hanan pointed out electoral reform or electoral change has two types, such as positive electoral reform vis versa negative electoral reform. Positive electoral reform leads to strengthen the values of democracy and constitutionalism. In contrast, negative electoral reform is a change in the electoral system that strengthens the pragmatic interests of political parties or reduces the democratic values.
The CC rulling Number 62/PUU-XXII/2024, a milestone made by the Constitutional Court to counter the democratic regression. It is a global phenomenon with a structured, systematic, and massive plan from authoritarian actors to attack the core of democracy and the rule of law principle.
This decision is the second time for the Constitutional Court has sided with the public and reinforced democratic institutions. Prior, the Constitutional Court Decision No. 60/PUU-XXII/2024, which demoted the threshold for regional head nominations in the concurrent regional elections last November, was an attempt by the Constitutional Court to dilute “the Borongan coalition” carried out by parties, which led to the phenomenon of single-candidate regional elections and the absence of alternative candidates that could be nominated. Actually, The verdict eliminating PT, mutatis mutandis, can also delete the threshold for regional head nominations to similarly create an inclusive and competitive democratic climate at the local level.
Although the Constitutional Court has given its constitutional guidance by providing fresh air in the electoral reform of the elimination of PT, the public must remain vigilant against further attacks from the weakening of democracy and the rule of law that could be carried out by other large parties, the sunset of electoral reform could be possibly happened by increasing the parliamentary threshold because the higher parliamentary threshold can impact to fewer parties to get seats in parliament, which will affect election participants from political parties who have the opportunity to nominate their presidential candidates.
Another possibility is an evil conspiracy from the parties to continuously create a fat coalition even without a threshold. Therefore, the spirit of electoral reform cannot only rely on legal policy to improve electoral laws through the Constitutional Court an sich however there must also be an internal driving force to remedy political party institutions as infrastructure, one of which is by penetrating the internal democratization process of political parties such as strengthening the cadre process, transparency of political party funding, democracy education and nominating the chief of political party based on democratic principle.
