Mardiono Calls PPP's 2024 Failure an 'Accident', Ready to Fight Any Parliamentary Threshold

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com — Muhammad Mardiono, the chairman of the United Development Party (PPP), said the PPP’s failure in the 2024 legislative elections was an ‘accident’. He also urged that the parliamentary threshold (PT) of 4 percent be lowered. ‘In the 2024 elections we were just a little short of passing—just a little—an accident for PPP,’ Mardiono told Kompas.com on Thursday, 5 March 2026. However, if the parliamentary threshold cannot be lowered, Mardiono stressed that the PPP is still prepared to contest the elections under the existing figure. ‘If that (PT) cannot be changed, cannot be lowered, then of course the PPP will not give up,’ he asserted. Meanwhile, Mardiono said he was not tired of travelling across regions to consolidate. He stated the PPP will strive to return to the DPR, after its first ever failure to qualify in 2024. ‘Inshallah, inshallah we will continue to strive to return to parliament, inshallah,’ he added. Nevertheless, observers say that reducing the threshold will not be easy because it concerns the interests of the major parties in parliament. Former Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Security (Menkopolhukam), Mahfud MD, argued that the DPR would find it difficult to lower the parliamentary threshold since seats held by large parties benefit from votes wasted by smaller parties. ‘If this is discussed again now, perhaps it will be reduced; perhaps negotiating with the DPR won’t be easy. Because the DPR is controlled by the parties that own the seats and have an interest in getting a spillover from the wasted votes,’ he said at a Parliamentary Threshold Seminar on Wednesday, 4 March 2026. According to Mahfud, seats that could have been spread to smaller parties end up being distributed to those that pass the threshold. This condition gives large parties an interest in maintaining a high threshold.