Stiff Competition Among Political Parties
Syamsuddin Haris
The Indonesian people will, for the first time, hold the legislative and presidential elections simultaneously on April 17, 2019.
The presidential and vice-presidential candidates, as well as the candidates for the House of Representatives (DPR), Regional Representatives Council (DPD) and regional legislative councils (DPRDs) will be elected simultaneously at the same time. What is the impact of the simultaneous election for political parties? Are there benefits for the people in holding a simultaneous election?
A logical consequence of the simultaneous general election is that participating political parties must not only fight for the presidential pair they are backing, but must also guard votes for their party in their respective electoral districts.
No political party wants to fail in the legislative election, even if they lose the presidential election. Even though the parties may succeed in that their presidential pair emerges the victor, the same parties may not hold House seats if they do not garner enough votes across the country to meet the legislative threshold as required by the General Elections Law. The problem is that the parties that are excluded from the DPR tend not to have a good bargaining position, even though they contributed to the "hard work" of ensuring that the party-backed presidential candidate wins.
Political parties generally understand the weighty competition of the 2019 simultaneous election. The larger number of parties contesting the election (16 parties), plus the increase in the legislative threshold from 3.5 percent (2014) to 4 percent (2019), have prompted many political parties to employ various techniques and strategies to anticipate the challenges.
Coattail effect
Besides the increasingly fierce competition, simultaneous elections theoretically tend to benefit only the presidential candidate’s party. The Gerindra Party, which is supporting its chairperson, Prabowo Subianto, for president, will benefit more from the legislative election than the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Democratic Party, as well as two other parties – the Working Party (Partai Berkarya) and Garuda Party – which are also supporting the Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno pair.
Likewise, the Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma\'ruf Amin pair is benefiting the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) more than the five other coalition parties (Golkar, National Awakening Party/PKB, Hanura, Nasdem and the United Development Party/PPP) and four other supporting parties (Perindo, Indonesian Solidarity Party/PSI, Indonesian Justice and Unity Party/PKPI, and later the Crescent Star party/PBB), because Jokowi comes from the party whose logo is a bull’s head.
This is often referred to as the coattail effect.
It is interesting that one of the strategies among coalition parties to face the tighter competition is allowing their legislative candidates to campaign for the rival presidential candidate. The Democrats, for example, are allowing its legislative candidates to back Jokowi-Ma\'ruf if their electoral district is located in the constituency of presidential ticket No. 01, even though the party is institutionally backing Prabowo-Sandi.
The same thing applies to legislative candidates hailing from Jokowi-Ma\'ruf coalition parties, who may campaign for Prabowo-Sandi if their electoral district is located in the constituency of presidential ticket No. 02.
A similar situation is very likely to prevail in most political parties, even though only a few candidates from parties such as PKS, the National Mandate Party (PAN) and PBB have publicly expressed their support for a particular presidential candidate. Each political party is responding in a different manner, which leaves an impression of an internal rift. However, it cannot be denied that political parties do experience internal disputes, especially because only a handful of oligarchic party elites decide which presidential candidate the party will support.
It is not surprising that we have read frequent news about several legislative candidates supporting the presidential candidate of the opposite camp.
With the exception of the political parties that are enjoying the coattail effect of their presidential candidates – PDI-P (Jokowi) and Gerindra (Prabowo) – none of the other political parties are guaranteed that they will meet the 4 percent legislative threshold. Beyond PDI-P and Gerindra, those large and medium-sized political parties that are relatively "safe" may only be Golkar and the PKB.
Almost all survey institutions confirm the potential electability of the four political parties. Golkar benefits as a party from the New Order era with its "middle way" ideology, which is deeply rooted in the political pulse of some Indonesian people, while the PKB has a relatively solid base among moderate Muslims such as the Nahdliyins in Java, Madura, Lampung and South Kalimantan.
Mass grave of political parties
The battle among middle- and low-tiered political parties in the 2019 election is much heavier than in the 2014 election. The problem is not solely because a party’s success in the presidential election does not guarantee similar success in the legislative election, but also because the distribution of constituent voters has broadened and become fragmented with the entry of four new political parties – the PSI, Perindo, Karya and Garuda. As with previous elections, these newly emerged parties are highly concerning to middle- and low-tiered political parties because of their potential for snatching up votes.
Faced with this situation, legislative candidates from parties outside PDI-P and Gerindra are generally playing two hands, campaigning according to the party line while also promoting the opposition presidential candidate. However, campaigning on two fronts like this is not easy for the legislative candidates.
In order to protect the votes for their political parties in their respective electoral districts, legislative candidates can do nothing but to accept frequent allegations of being opportunistic and inconsistent. Apart from such lopsided accusations, the legislative candidates’ focus on saving their electoral votes is a "rational" decision when faced with constituents who prefer a different presidential candidate than their political party.
It cannot be denied that political parties need to adopt a variety of strategies and approaches so as to prevent the 2019 election from being a disaster and a "grave" for them. Some survey institutions have predicted that only about half of the 16 political parties contesting the election will qualify for a seat in Senayan (DPR). This means that the 2019 election may turn into a mass grave of parties that have failed to meet the 4 percent legislative threshold of Law No. 7/2017 on the General Elections.
The public surveys conducted from May 2018 to January 2019 by five different institutions – LIPI (early May 2018), Indonesian Indicators (September 2018), Populi Center (September 2018), Kompas Research and Development (October 2018) and Charta Politika (January 2019) – indicate that only five to eight political parties are likely to meet the legislative threshold. These parties are the PDI-P, Gerindra, Golkar, PKB, Democrats, Nasdem, PPP and PKS.
The other parties will be buried among the hustle and bustle of the 2019 election. However, it should be noted that first, the survey results apply only at the time of the survey. This means that the parties’ electability may have changed greatly by voting day, compared to when the survey was conducted.
Second, the survey results generally have not taken into account the 2.0-3.0 percent potential for error (margin of error), so there is a chance that political parties may meet the legislative threshold, contrary to the survey’s predictions.
Third, the 2019 electoral campaign period lasts until April 15, 2019, so those parties expected to fall short of the threshold still have a chance to increase their electability.
Knitting the hope
It is certainly natural that political parties are vying hard to gain votes from the electorate. However, they should not be making efforts merely to fulfill the legislative threshold to earn a ticket to Senayan. The public is also hoping for significant political improvements in this inaugural simultaneous election, such as the improved performance of parties that win DPR seats. They are also hoping for better effectiveness and accountability of the presidential system towards achieving the ideals of social justice and welfare.
Perhaps herein lays the problem of our general elections. Even though the electoral scheme has changed from separate to simultaneous, it has not provided political benefits for the people. The new election law does not guarantee any benefits other than to redistribute power among the politicians at representative institutions.
As in the previous general elections, some political parties will be sidelined, while others will survive. The same thing applies to politicians: some public representatives that do not possess good performance or clear achievements will hold onto their seats, while others will bite their fingernails because they will have to depart the DPR.
The political cycle will then repeat as before. After the election, these public representatives will only focus on themselves while the majority of the people endure increasing socioeconomic hardships. The people only cast their hopes from election to election.
If so, until when will we hold these elections that only redistribute power among the political elite? (Syamsuddin Haris, Research Professor, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI))
