Political Party Electability Volatility
The fluctuations in the electability of political parties from one election to another shows a relatively consistent pattern in the distribution of votes in each election.
The results of the October 2021 Kompas Research and Development survey shows that of the nine political parties in the House of Representatives (DPR), the electability rates of seven have declined compared to the figures from the April 2021 survey (Kompas, 21/10/2021).
This phenomenon is commonly referred to as electoral volatility, or fluctuation in voter behavior between two elections. Electoral volatility as regards Indonesia’s legislative elections tends to be unstable.
This electoral volatility tends to be high, at 20.08 (between the 1999 and 2004 elections), 27.035 (2004/2009), 19.5 (2009/2014) and 13.05 (2014/2019). Electoral volatility for the last two elections was also relatively high, at around 16.2 percent, largely due to floating votes as an impact of the combination of an extreme multiparty system and the open-list proportional representation (OLPR) system.
Distribution of votes
The fluctuations in the electability of political parties from one election to another shows a relatively consistent pattern in the distribution of votes in each election.
This is a trend of relatively well established systems, the OLPR system being relatively stable in forming the bases of political parties.
This trend can be seen in the last two elections, the 2014 legislative election and the 2019 simultaneous presidential and legislative elections, when the electoral space could only accommodate seats for 8-9 political parties at the national legislature (DPR).
The adoption of the simultaneous general elections, the divisor's Sainte Lague method and the 4 percent legislative threshold were all less instrumental to the electoral changes that produced a ruling party that won on majority votes.
This means that the electoral system implemented in Indonesia still shows a fluctuating tendency in the distribution of votes, with the winning party unable to gain more than 25 percent of total votes.
It turned out that the winning party only received below 20 percent of the national vote, far below the presidential threshold needed for the party to be eligible to the nominate presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The distribution of votes and electoral volatility are attributable to first, stagnant voter wooing among political parties with large bases (the top three parties) and medium-sized parties in the 2019 election, compared to the 2014 election.
There was no significant “vote spike” for the two mainstream parties that were locked in a fierce competition marked by nationalist versus religious groups, both with their respective presidential candidates. The “coattail effect” from implementing the simultaneous elections simply did not work.
The stagnancy in wooing voters during the 2019 election among the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Gerindra, as well as several medium-sized parties, such as NasDem and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), resulted in widely shared votes instead of exclusive polarization.
Medium-sized parties, such as the Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Patty (PPP), also showed a decrease in votes.
The second factor was the decline in Golkar votes, which continued to decrease from one election to another at a range of 2.5 to 3.5 percent, which subsequently added to the potential impact of higher electoral volatility. Medium-sized parties, such as the Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Patty (PPP), also showed a decrease in votes.
The third influential factor is the persistent participation of small parties and the emergence of new parties at every election. These small and new parties contributed to an electoral volatility of around 12.23 percent (2019) in the votes for PBB, Hanura, PKPI, Berkarya, PSI, and Perindo.
The fluctuation in votes for political parties in the last two elections showed a distinctly different electoral performance between one group of political parties and another.
The first group comprised parties with relatively stable electability, such as PDI-P, Gerindra, PKB, PKS and Nasdem. The second group comprised parties with potential electoral volatility, such as Golkar, the Democrats, PAN and PPP.
The stagnation and decline in the electoral votes of political parties is attributable to multifaceted causes, ranging from a party's poor work performance, the absence of a vote getter, internal friction and conflicts, and to a party’s degrading electoral performance due to the fact that it would only be around during the buildup to the election.
Public disappointment with the performance of the multiparty coalition government also contributed to electoral volatility.
Voting for a party is not only based on ideological factors, but is also influenced by several considerations. Voters beginning to develop political awareness tend to merge into a mass of floating voters who will determine their political preference just before the ballot or even in the voting booth.
The complicated technical factors of the simultaneous election caused indecision among voters as to their preference, which led to a nonlinear share of votes between the presidential and legislative elections.
Implications for presidential system
The fluctuation in the electoral votes of political parties is not solely an internal party matter, and is closely related to a government built from the election results.
One of the real impacts of Indonesia’s potentially high electoral volatility is weak government due to a compromise-oriented coalition.
The change in electoral design through the increased legislative threshold and the adoption of the Sainte Lague method, as well as the implementing the simultaneous general elections, have been unable to change the legislature’s political makeup.
In the end, the president-elect became trapped by the political maneuvers of the coalition partners because the winning party did not meet the 20 percent presidential threshold.
The coalition government formed by the president-elect ultimately came to be controlled by the coalition partners. Although the president- and vice president-elects gained huge legitimacy from the election results, the threat of cohabitation existed in the design of the political system, with the president-elect having little political support in the legislature.
A president-elect has so far formed two types of coalition government. The first is a loose coalition government that accommodates all political parties to result in overwhelm.
Such a coalition was formed during the administrations of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY)-Jusuf Kalla (JK), SBY-Boediono, Jokowi-JK and Jokowi-Ma'ruf Amin.
The coalition’s spillover effect weakened the president's position in Indonesia’s presidential system. The president, who holds full political authority as a prerogative in a presidential system, is faced with political bargaining throughout his term as a result of calculating political support under the pretext of smooth and workable governance. As a result, Laswell's political theory applies: "who gets what, when and how".
According to coalition theory, the above model clashes with the orientation of power gain (office seeking). The adage, “There is no free meal in politics”, therefore applies.
Over time, this practice can become a political habit or tantrum in the presidential system that Indonesia has adopted.
This coalition pattern tends to repeat, with the president-elect dividing slices of executive power to the supporting political parties. Over time, this practice can become a political habit or tantrum in the presidential system that Indonesia has adopted.
The result is that the coalition government cannot prevent the president from fulfilling the political interests of his political supporters. The parties in the government coalition are not a single entity, but are fragmented in terms of factions and interests.
Their fragmented interests affect the formation of a coalition government because there are too many key actors with veto power. The large number of political parties in a spillover coalition not only makes it difficult for an elected president to form a coalition government, but also to develop policies.
This situation occurs when the president is weak in leadership while the veto holders dominate. On the other hand, a spillover coalition can potentially allow the president to push ahead with his policies (all the president's men) without supervision, so that the political system does not have checks and balances. Even if there is supervision, it is symbolic, just a political gimmick.
The second pattern is that the elected president does not gain majority political support because of minority supporters in the legislature. This pattern finds the elected president in difficulty in forming a minority coalition government, and his political policies will be vulnerable and fragile.
These two extreme patterns are a logical consequence of adopting a presidential system that is manifested through a multi-party election.
The stability of the government will be under the threat of complex and unstable political calculations, which will cause disruption to the government.
Ideally, a coalition government is driven more by policy preferences so that a working cabinet (kabinet zaken) is formed instead of a shared cabinet (office seeking).
With the developments and practices in Indonesian politics over the last two decades, the expectation of policy preferences in the coalition government is still impossible to realize.
Why? Because the development of our presidential system has undergone a shift. The multiparty system has caused a shift in the presidential system to form a parliamentary-style government, because the election results do not give the president confidence in his coalition.
As a result, there will be a postelection reconfiguration of political coalitions.
Moch. Nurhasim, Researcher, Political Research Center, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN)
(This article was translated by Musthofid).