Four New Political Parties Demands the Erasure of Presidential Threshold

The Special Committee for the new Elections Law Bill invites four new political parties to a hearing session. Those parties are Indonesia Solidarity Party (PSI), Indonesia Unity Party (Perindo), Working Party, and Idaman Party. All four parties demands the erasure of parliamentary threshold provision from the new Elections Law Bill. They argue the provision is not suitable with the concurrent election that will be implemented in 2019.

“Presidential threshold is irrelevant within the context of concurrent election. No countries in the world use presidential threshold as a requirement for presidential candidacy,” says the Chairperson of PSI, Grace Natalie, in Jakarta (02/08).

In addition, all new political parties argue presidential threshold is a burden for new political parties like themselves. The General Secretary of Perindo, Ahmad Rofiq, says presidential threshold is a political ruse by interested parties to give advantages for certain people.

“The fact that there is a proposal to implement presidential threshold implies the existence of big forces to tackle small candidates,” says Rofiq.

Other than demanding the erasure of presidential threshold, the four new political parties also demands a fairer verification process for every political party, including the ones that already have seats in parliament.