The Election Association for Democracy (Perludem) submitted a judicial review to the Constitutional Court (MK) regarding the parliamentary threshold provisions regulated in Law Number 7/2017 concerning general elections. The article being tested is Article 414, paragraph 1, of Law No. 7 of 2017, which states: "Political parties participating in the election must meet the vote acquisition threshold of at least 4% (four percent) of the number of valid votes nationally to be included in determining the acquisition of DPR seats."
"If the vote does not reach 4 percent, then the voters' votes will be wasted; this is not in accordance with the mandate in Article 22E paragraph 1, regarding direct, general, free, secret, honest, and fair elections," said the attorney for the judicial review, Fadli Ramadhanil, in the main points of his petition in the Courtroom of the Indonesian Constitutional Court on Tuesday (03/10).
Fadli said that parliamentary thresholds must be designed using a rational, mathematical formula, carried out in an open, honest, and fair manner, and in accordance with the principle of proportional elections. This judicial review regarding the parliamentary threshold is not intended to remove the provisions on the parliamentary threshold. However, the size of the parliamentary threshold must be determined openly, prioritizing the principle of proportionality.
"In essence, proportional elections are how the votes obtained by political parties must be in line with the number of seats obtained in the legislative body, and that does not happen with the parliamentary threshold of 4 percent," he said.
The parliamentary threshold was first applied in the 2009 election. Based on Law Number 10 of 2008, the threshold was set at 2.5% of the number of valid national votes and only applied to the DPR. Then, in the 2014 election, through Law Number 8 of 2012, the parliamentary threshold was raised to 3.5% of the total national valid votes, and this came into effect for the DPR and DPD.
Furthermore, in the 2019 election and the upcoming 2024 election, based on Law Number 7 of 2017, it is stipulated that to obtain a seat in parliament, a political party must obtain at least 4% of the total national valid votes. This applies to all members of the DPR RI. []
