Less than Half of Registered Political Parties Remain Active

The registration of the political parties to participate in the election will begin in July, and the names of the political parties that are eligible to participate will be announced at the end of December 2022.

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Rows of flags of political parties participating in the 2019 General Election in the Senayan area, Jakarta, Sunday (7/4/2019).

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Of the 75 registered political parties, only 30 have been successfully contacted by the General Elections Commission (KPU) to participate in a simulation of the use of the Political Party Information System (Sipol). This is in line with estimates by a number of organizations that less than half of the legally acknowledged political parties in the country are active and ready to take part in the 2024 general election.

The KPU held a simulation on the use of the Sipol in Jakarta on Thursday (9/6/2022). The commission sought to invite 75 registered political parties to participate in the simulation, but only 30 political parties’ addresses were found.

Of that number, only 29 political parties participated in the Sipol simulation, held as part of preparations for political party registration for the 2024 general election. The number was slightly lower than in the simulation held in 2017 for the registration of the political parties in the 2019 Election. At that time, out of 73 political parties with legal entities, only 33 joined the Sipol trial.

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KPU member August Mellaz said Sipol simulations would be held several more times. The trial was carried out in order to get input from political parties for the improvement of the Sipol. In addition, it is expected that the political parties that will participate the election will be familiar with using Sipol when registering for the 2024 general election.

The registration of the political parties to participate in the election will begin in July, and the names of the political parties that are eligible to participate in the election will be announced at the end of December 2022.

In order to avoid a problem in the use of the Sipol, the KPU will assist political parties in uploading data to the system, Agus said. If there are problems in the process of uploading physical documents, the KPU will help upload them. The KPU will prepare a help desk to assist Sipol users.

“Sipol will contain all administrative documents from political parties. And they will be used as the basis for us to verify the administration and proceed to the next stage,” said August.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

General Election Commission officers accompany and provide training to representatives of political parties during the trial of the Political Party Information System (Sipol) held by the KPU in Jakarta, Thursday (9/6/2022). Sipol is an information technology system provided by the KPU to assist political parties and election organizers.

Inactive political parties

Looking at the small number of political parties participating in the Sipol simulation, the executive director of the Association for Elections and Democracy, Khoirunnisa Nur Agustyati, predicted that the number of political parties that would register and qualify to participate in the 2024 General Election would decrease. This is because it is difficult for political parties, especially those that do not have seats in the House of Representatives, to qualify as election participants.

"The requirements for a political party to participate in the general election are tough, and it also requires a lot of money, so of course, every political party will calculate whether it is able to pass the KPU verification stage or not," said Khoirunnisa.

She explained that based on a Constitutional Court ruling, after the registration is completed, the political parties should carry out administrative and factual verification. Only political parties that already have seats in the House are not required to undergo factual verification. Factual verification will also be carried out at the subdistrict level. Such a complicated procedure can be one of the factors to be considered by the political parties in deciding whether to take part in the elections.

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August Mellaz said he could not predict whether the number of the political parties that would register for the 2024 general election would decrease compared to the 2019 election, given the small number of political parties taking part in the Sipol trial. The decline in the number of participants in the Sipol trial occurred because only 30 political parties received invitations. The invitations for the rest were undelivered because their addresses could not be found.

According to the head of the Department of Politics and Social Change at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Arya Fernandes, the fact that addresses of many political parties could not be found could indicate that many political parties are no longer active. Moreover, most of the political parties did not renew their legal registrations. On the other hand, there is no regulation that requires political parties to update their data on a regular basis.

From his search, Arya said there were political parties whose chair had died or had moved political parties. There were also political parties that had merged with other political parties. This shows that it is not easy for political parties to survive, especially political parties that do not meet the parliamentary threshold or have failed in the election twice. They usually will not carry out their activities anymore. He predicts there will be less than 15 political parties that will take part in the 2024 general election.

This article was translated by Hendarsyah Tarmizi.