Perludem representative Titi Anggraeni and attorney Fadli Ramadhani delivering the petition revision in the judicial review of the Election Law, Wednesday (12/8) in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Gani.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) held another judicial review hearing of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections on Wednesday, August 12, 2020 in the Plenary Courtroom. The case No. 48/PUU-XVIII/2020 was petitioned by the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem). The Petitioner challenged Article 414 paragraph (1) of the Election Law.

At this second hearing, Perludem representative Titi Anggraeni said that the foundation granted Perludem chairman the right to it in and out of court. “This concludes the change of the Petitioner’s legal standing due to the change in the foundation’s article of association and statutes/bylaws,” she said next to attorney Fadli Ramadhani.

Fadli said the Petitioner challenged the Election Law against Article 1 paragraph (2), Article 22E paragraph (1), Article 27 paragraph (1), and Article 28D paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution. “The touchstones in this petition are different from those in previous petitions,” he said before Constitutional Justices Saldi Isra, Wahiduddin Adams, and Arief Hidayat.

The Petitioner also strengthened its argument regarding political party simplification, which not only concerns number of parties, but also seat distribution and allocation in the parliament. This way, the multi-party system can be either moderate, with 3-5 relevant parties, or extreme, with over 5 parties. “[Parliamentary] threshold cannot realize political party simplification in Indonesia,” Fadli said.

At the first hearing, the Petitioner said the threshold is simply defined as the minimum vote requirement that must be reached by political parties contesting in the legislative election in order to be included in the seat allocation in the House (DPR). The constitutionality of the parliamentary threshold has been challenged in the Constitutional Court and the Court has issued five decisions on it from 2009 to 2018. The Petitioner currently focuses on the formulation of the 4% parliamentary threshold and a proportional electoral system regulation in Article 414 paragraph (1) of the Election Law. This provision has led to the waste of votes due to threshold requirement that was not accurately formulated, thus giving birth to inconsistencies in the arrangements of proportional representation.

The Petitioner saw a connection with the provision on parliamentary threshold, which is one of the variables of the electoral system. There is a mathematical formula for elections that are used by experts and practitioners who study politics, elections, and government systems. So that the parliamentary threshold doesn’t conflict with political rights, popular sovereignty, and rationality, it is necessary to question the basic argument for the formation of the law to determine the 4% set out in the Election Law. (*)

Writer: Sri Pujianti
Editor: Lulu Anjarsari
PR: Tiara Agustina
Photographer: Gani
Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 8/13/2020 16:26 WIB

Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case where any differences occur between the English and the Indonesian version, the Indonesian version will prevail.