President Director of Center for Constitutional Studies (Pusako) Andalas University, Feri Amsari, as expert presented by the Petitioners of the judicial review of Election Law on Tuesday (24/10) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court Building. Photo by Humas MK/Ganie.

The presidential and vice presidential threshold is unconstitutional because in the founding of the 1945 Constitution, the founding fathers did not listed it. This was explained by the President Director of Center for Constitutional Studies (Pusako) Andalas University Feri Amsari as expert for the Petitioners of judicial review of Law No. 7/2017 on General Elections. The hearing scheduled to listen to the Expert\'s information was held by the Constitutional Court (MK), Tuesday (24/10) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court.

Feri claimed that the presidential threshold percentages listed in Article 222 of the Elections Law, 20% and 25%, cannot be found in the 1945 Constitution. Simply put, it is unlikely that such an important rule with consequences following such percentages—such important political numbers do not concern the formation of the 1945 Constitution. He claimed the threshold percentages challenged by the Petitioners are momentary political numbers.

"If indeed these numbers are very important for presidential and vice presidential elections, of course those figures are included in the 1945 Constitution. In fact, the 20% and 25% numbers only appear in the Elections Law. That is, the numbers are momentary political ones decided when discussing the law. Such numbers can be said to be unconstitutional," Feri explained before the panel of justices led by the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Arief Hidayat.

In addition, Feri explained that most countries that embrace the presidential systems do not implement the presidential threshold. He stated United States as an example.

"For example, he continued, in the U.S. presidential candidates are not always two. In fact, even almost every presidential election had more than two presidential candidates, as I recall for example in the Bush election era in the Bush-Al Gore\'s important case, there were10 candidates. In the last election with Trump and Hillary, there were actually 23 presidential candidates. It means that there is no such limitation; the voters are given space to determine the president elect. It is exactly the same with the statement of the Court in Decision No. 14/PUU-XI/2013 that there is a balance of power between parties and voters," he explained.

The hearing was held simultaneously with other cases that review the Elections Law, namely Cases No. 44/PUU-XV/2017, 53/PUU-XV/2017, 70/PUU-XV/2017, 71/PUU-XV/2017, and 72/PUU-XV/2017. The Petitioners object to the threshold rule in the presidential and vice presidential nomination. The Petitioners considered Article 173 paragraphs (1) and (3) of the Elections Law discriminatory. Therefore, the rule gives different treatments to old parties and new ones. In other words, the provisions have a double standard. With regard to Article 222 of the Elections Law, the Petitioners claims that the presidential threshold requiring the presidential and vice-presidential candidates to have at least 20% support for the House of Representatives or 25% national vote in the parliamentary elections irrelevant. (ARS/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)