PAN Objects to Parliamentary Threshold Rising Above 4 Per Cent: Higher Threshold Means More Wasted Votes

The Central Executive Board (DPP) of the National Mandable Party (PAN) has expressed objections to the parliamentary threshold (PT) rising above 4 per cent, as it potentially conflicts with Constitutional Court (MK) rulings.

PAN Deputy Chairman Viva Yoga Mauladi stated in Jakarta on Thursday that Constitutional Court Decision Number 116/PUU-XXI/2023 mandates that the threshold must consider aspects of political representation and prevent a large number of valid votes from being wasted.

According to him, a higher PT will lead to a tendency where valid voter votes cannot be converted into parliamentary seats. “PAN’s stance is not because we are worried about failing to secure seats in the DPR RI, as PAN has proven to consistently pass into Senayan from the 1999 to 2024 elections,” he said.

He assessed that the more election participants fail to meet the PT, the larger the number of valid votes that will be wasted because they cannot be converted into seats. This condition, he added, would result in a high level of disproportionality in the election, thereby lowering the value of democratic representation.

Furthermore, he noted that in Decision 45/PUU-XXII/2024, the Constitutional Court stated that determining the PT size without adequate methods and arguments can cause disproportionality between the national valid vote count and the number of seats allocated.

In the 2024 Legislative Election with a 4 per cent PT, he noted that the number of national valid votes that could not be converted into seats was 17,304,303 (11.4 per cent). Similarly, in the 2019 Legislative Election, there were 13,595,842 votes (9.71 per cent), and for the 2014 Legislative Election, there were 2,964,975 votes (2.37 per cent).

Nevertheless, he assessed that there is no ideal value for the PT size. However, he emphasised that any change to the PT must remain within the framework of maintaining the proportionality of the proportional election system, particularly to prevent a large number of votes from being unable to be converted into DPR seats.

“The idea of simplifying political parties in the DPR must not clash with the necessity of maintaining the principle of proportionality in election results,” said Viva.

Previously, the Secretary General of the Gerindra Party, Sugiono, stated that his party agrees with a parliamentary threshold of 5 per cent in the discussions regarding the revision of the Election Law. Meanwhile, the Head of the Honour Committee of the PDI-P, Komarudun Watubun, mentioned that the proposal for a 5 per cent parliamentary threshold is an ideal figure to achieve the simplification of political parties.