Electability of Political Parties

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Ahead of the South Tangerang mayoral election in 2020, billboards, banners and posters of a number of public figures and political parties are installed in public spaces, such as roadsides in South Tangerang city, Banten, as seen on Sunday (24/11/2019). Some of the figures have openly declared to run for mayor while others do not mention clearly their intention to take part in the election. The banners, posters, and billboards are also found in a number of regions that will carry out simultaneous regional elections in 2020.

The publication of the results of a survey by Indikator Politik Indonesia illustrates the stagnant electability of political parties on the one hand and a decline in the parties’ voters on the other. The survey conducted on 16-18 May 2020 shows that the majority of political parties has decreased in electability, even the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has shown a potential free fall when compared to the results of the February 2020 survey.

The survey’s resulting map of political party supporters has indeed not been as accurate as the map of supporters for presidential/vice presidential candidates ever since the emergence of survey institutions in Indonesia. There is a wide disparity between the survey results and the votes political parties have obtained in the general elections.

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This is quite different from the level of "accuracy" of the results of the electability surveys for presidential/vice presidential candidates, which almost mirror the actual results of the presidential election. For example, a number of pollsters predicted in 2019 that the United Development Party (PPP), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the National Mandate Party (PAN), and the National Awakening Party (PKB) would not exceed the parliamentary threshold (4 percent), or “free fall”.

Therefore, the parties predicted to experience fewer votes and electoral stagnation have often negatively responded to the results of such survey. In actual fact, this kind of survey is useful because it can give an early warning to party administrators to mend and improve their political performance.

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KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

The logos of political parties are displayed at the General Elections Commission (KPU) office, Jakarta, Wednesday (22/1/2020).

Volatility and ideology

One topic of debate on the level of precision of the political party electability survey refers to the volatility factor of the general elections. The volatility of the general elections can be measured to detect changes in the strength of each political party in terms of voting results between two consecutive elections.

The results of my study show that the volatility of the Indonesian general elections is very high, between 26.1 percent to 39.05 percent. The greatest volatility occurred between the 2009 general elections and the 2014 elections (39.05 percent). Meanwhile, the volatility of the 2019 elections at 26.1 percent (from the 2014 elections) was low compared to the volatility of other elections.

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The above data confirms a changing pattern among voters in choosing parties from election to election in the Reform Era with the level of average volatility remaining high at above 25 percent. This volatility shows that first, that the level of political party institutionalization – in which the age of the organization is one influencing factor –determines the stability of the number of votes it gains in each election, while political parties that are less institutionalized will experience relative fluctuations in votes from one election to the next election.

Since the 2009 elections, the political parties that have relatively good stability in terms of electoral volatility are the PDI-P, PKB, Gerindra, PKS, and Nasdem. The rest, such as Golkar, Democratic Party, PPP, and PAN, are still experiencing fluctuations and uncertainties in their votes. In the case of the Democrats, it has the most extreme volatility among all other parties, especially since the 2014 election.

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Second, the ups and downs in a party\'s electoral votes show inconsistent behavior among voters. In popular terms, these are called swing voters. This is due to the impact of the political bases of Indonesian political parties, which are still confined by the sociological model of the Columbia group. Voters are influenced in their behavior by their social groups due to sociological, demographic, and identity (religion and others) factors.

These sociological factors tend to have a fragile influence because voters who base their choices on symbolic ideological beliefs because of their close social ties to the parties are not balanced by good political choices. Floating voters can be considered as rational in an election, but the phenomenon of partisan choice could be considered a factor that maintains high volatility among Indonesian elections.

Symptoms of voter behavior typology like this have begun to appear, although somewhat vaguely. The pattern of voter behavior in the 2004 and 2009 elections was almost the same as the pattern in the 2014 and 2019 elections, when voters tended to draw closer to parties that could potentially emerge as the winners. In contrast, following the parties’ election, there are symptoms showing that the parties experience a decline in votes, even stagnation, as has happened with the Democratic Party. This is also shown in some of the initial symptoms that the PDI-P is experiencing as mentioned in the survey results above, as well as in the election results the PDI-P saw in several simultaneous regional elections in 2017-2018 until the start of the decline that emerged in the 2019 elections.

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Third, there is the issue of parties becoming increasingly distant in terms of their ideologies. The party identity does not develop well because political parties prefer to develop catchall parties rather than parties that are based on firm ideologies and identities. As a result, voters become confused in distinguishing between political parties due to this phenomenon of loose ideological connection, so that there is no apparent difference between one party and another.

No wonder, then, that there are floating voters whose choices change from one election to another. This condition has also caused new parties to emerge with every five-yearly election. The presence of new parties as a result of the heightening volatility among election results has prompted several parties to try their luck in attracting voters who are more flexible in their political choices. This phenomenon of undecided voters – as the Indikator survey results above reflect almost exactly – is understandable because the next election is still four years away.

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Kompas/Heru Sri Kumoro

Commissioner of the General Election Commission Evi Novida Ginting (four from left) accompanied by KPU Chairman Arief Budiman (three from left) and other commissioners gave a statement after the decision of the Election Organizer Honorary Board who dismissed Evi Novida Ginting permanently at the KPU Office, Jakarta, Thursday (19/3/2020).

Electoral performance

The challenge in the stability/lability of votes political parties gain in each election also depends on the party\'s electoral readiness. There are a number of aspects that indicate a party’s electoral stability/lability in elections, with internal party unity the first among these. A party that experiences prolonged internal conflicts or factions generally loses voters. The PKB’s case of voter decline in the 2004 and 2009 elections, as well as Golkar’s voter decline in several elections due to internal factions, resulted in the birth of new parties that eroded Golkar support. Almost the same thing happened to the PPP when it was hit by a prolonged internal conflict.

Internal party conflicts cause a number of the best cadres with the potential to become vote getters to relocate to other parties. This phenomenon occurs not only among the party elite and/or cadres at the national level, but also at the regional level. When party cadres relocate due to sharp internal divisions, they take their support bases to the party that receives them. In this context, cadre loyalty and cohesiveness become a challenge for parties that experience divisions that are too sharp for it to manage.

Second is the impact of issues related to the integrity of the party elite that are embroiled in corruption cases. The decline in votes for the PKS, the Democrats, and the PPP in the 2014 election, as well as the stagnation in Golkar votes in the 2019 elections, all due to their political elite being dragged into corruption cases, are examples of voter movement due to the political parties’ condition. Some voters behave rationally in understanding the developments of the party that they initially supported. However, in certain cases a number of voters move their support to parties that are still considered trustworthy.

Broadly speaking, the electoral volatility of political parties in Sergiu Gherghina\'s study on the electoral development of political parties in Western and Central Europe shows almost the same thing, namely the influence of both internal and external factors. The internal factor relates to party organization and the external factor relates to the volatility of the party system.

LIPI

Moch Nurhasim

Gherghina also mentioned that party organization could reduce or increase a party’s electoral volatility. The studies conducted by Barelson et al (1954) and Easton (1957), for example, mention the extent to which political parties can simplify electoral choices to produce a symbol of identity and loyalty, depending which of these choices of party ideology and loyalty is closer to the voter base. Neumann (1956), Key (1964), Borre and Katz (1973), Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) and Dalton and Wattenberg (2000) have all conducted studies that point to the electoral continuity of political parties if the parties can maintain a chain of communication with the public

Moch Nurhasim, Researcher, Center for Political Studies, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).