Golkar's Rationale for Proposing 5 Per Cent Parliamentary Threshold

Golkar party has proposed raising the parliamentary threshold from 4 per cent to 5 per cent for the 2029 general election. Golkar’s Secretary-General Muhammad Sarmuji stated that the figure represents a combination of the parliamentary threshold with the faction threshold, creating what the party believes would be a simpler multiparty system. Speaking via WhatsApp on Saturday, 28 February 2026, Sarmuji acknowledged that implementing a parliamentary threshold risks causing wasted votes that fail to convert into parliamentary seats. However, he argued that the parliamentary threshold remains essential to Indonesia’s electoral process as a mechanism to simplify the multiparty system and accommodate political aspirations.

Sarmuji explained that whilst abolishing the parliamentary threshold would provide greater opportunities for other parties to enter parliament, this would result in an extremely fragmented multiparty system. “We are endeavouring to act wisely and judiciously, therefore we have proposed 5 per cent for the parliamentary threshold in 2029,” said the Golkar faction leader.

Last year, the Constitutional Court, in case number 116/PUU-XVIII/2023, decided to conditionally abolish the 4 per cent parliamentary threshold established in the Electoral Law, effective from the 2029 election onwards. The Court’s reasoning held that the parliamentary threshold provision was incompatible with the principle of popular sovereignty, electoral justice, and constitutional guarantees of legal certainty.

Various political parties have since proposed amendments to the parliamentary threshold in light of the Constitutional Court’s ruling. The National Mandate Party (PAN), for instance, has proposed complete abolition to prevent wasted votes. The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) advocates maintaining the existing 4 per cent threshold. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party of Indonesia (NasDem) has proposed raising it to 7 per cent, citing the need to maintain governmental stability.