Rumah Pemilu Indonesia Election Portal
51 percent or 204 out of total 400 respondents of a survey conducted in Sumatera, Jawa, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali, Nusa Tenggara, and Eastern Indonesia, want more than just two candidates for the upcoming 2019 Presidential Election. Voters with the age of 45 or older say that they prefer only two candidates, while voters with the age 45 or younger say they want more than two candidates.
“The trend shows that older voters want fewer candidates. Meanwhile, younger voters more candidates because they want as many options as there can be,” says a researcher from Polling Center, Henny Susilawati, during a public event “Survey Publication on Public Response on the Elections Law Bill” in Jakarta (03/16).
A researcher from the Center for Constitutional Law (Pusako) of Andalas University, Khaerul Fahmi, says that the government should clarify the problem regarding presidential threshold before they can formulate a clear regulation on presidential candidacy. Presidential threshold is unimplementable in the 2019 Elections because the election will be run concurrently between presidential and legislative elections.
“Presidential threshold is a strange concept, especially for a concurrent election. There will be consistency: in the election laws it is stated that any political party that participate in legislative election is allowed to submit one presidential candidate,” says Fahmi.
The new Elections Law Bill contains a regulation regarding presidential threshold in Article 190. In the Article, it is stated that only political party or coalition of political parties with at least 20 percent of parliamentary seats or received at least 25 percent of votes in the previous legislative election that is allowed to submit a presidential candidate.
