On the Election Bill, PSI: Spirits in the DPR Are Not the Same, Some Embrace, Some Want to Discard

JAKARTA - The Daily Chairman of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), Ahmad Ali, suspects that the lack of consensus among DPR factions is causing the drawn-out discussions on revising the Election Law. This is inseparable from the interests of large political parties that wish to set the parliamentary threshold as high as possible. “The spirits are not the same. There is a spirit to embrace and a spirit to discard, right,” said Ali when contacted by Kompas.com on Monday (4/5/2026). He assessed that such steps are taken due to the slow legislative process resulting from the tug-of-war of interests among factions. “We return to rationality that on the other hand we can understand that the government considers, it may consider that the DPR is very slow today because of the pull and push of interests,” he stated. He exemplified the case of PPP, which failed to enter parliament, where its votes were then distributed to other parties. “How do you think the public feels who voted for PPP but had to be redirected to other parties,” he said. Ali encouraged the government to mediate the deadlock that has occurred. Such efforts are deemed not too difficult considering that the government-supporting parties today are very large. “We need the government for mediation. Moreover, today the government-supporting parties are very large, so interests of parties and the government should be able to be managed through one door,” he said. However, PSI continues to push for the discussions to be conducted collaboratively to avoid legal defects that risk being annulled by the Constitutional Court (MK). “If taken over by the government, we are also worried that things will happen that are not in line with the public. Because whatever it is today, the DPR is a representation of the public. Still discuss it so that it is not legally flawed,” he emphasised.