Parliamentary Threshold: Mirror of Authoritarian Constitutionalism

The parliamentary threshold – the minimum vote threshold for a party to secure legislative seats in the DPR – is once again featuring in uncoordinated plans to amend the Election Law. It is always thus: whenever the election law is to be discussed, the parliamentary threshold emerges repeatedly. Raise the threshold figure, lower it, or even abolish it altogether – these are the options continually presented to the public. Simplifying the political spectrum in the DPR has so far appeared to be the core expectation behind the idea of the parliamentary threshold. An excess of diverse parties in the DPR, in this context, equates to complicating the decision-making process. Complicating the decision-making process equates to placing the government, and the ruling parties, in serious trouble. Does that argument make sense? Authoritarian constitutionalism, as presented throughout history, has carved out its existence through one thing: political diversity is defined as a threat, even a real danger, faced by those in power, and must be eliminated from the outset. This type of constitutionalism is also guided by the identification of friends and foes. Friends are embraced, and foes must be sidelined as quickly as possible. Diversity, it must be acknowledged, has never been offered by constitutional scholarship as a means to invoke and stage accountability, transparency, and responsibility in governance. The history of politics from ancient Rome to the present convincingly shows that diversity has never reliably served as a way to halt clandestine political practices, factions, chicanery – deception – and all similar elements in political life. Interestingly, these weaknesses have never shattered the expectations and hopes of involving various groups in decision-making for the common good. First, it raises the substantive legitimacy of public affairs, granting them legal capacity as governmental matters that must be carried out by the government. Second, citizens’ rights are neither suspended nor eliminated. These two elements are what constitutionalists and political scientists present as key, irreplaceable components of republican governance. It is not republican governance if citizenship rights are granted only to a select group of people. It is not a republic if only a select group is given the right to participate in exercising governmental power. That is the main reason why the nobility, the aristoi – the aristocrats – who for centuries existed as citizens – with rights – participating in exercising governmental power, were ultimately stopped. The cessation of that privilege, it must be acknowledged, did not happen overnight. The story of aristocratic politics, in its verified history, has never been far from stories of self-interest, stories of multiplying their wealth. Also stories of factions, cliques, and the like. All of it is decorated across their damned political spectrum. The financial gains obtained from their status as senators became their greatest challenge in accepting the presence of representatives from the plebeian class. Plebeian, the name given to people outside the aristoi, who because of their numbers were called – populus – to become members, what is now called the legislature. It took centuries, and costly struggles, for plebeians to gain recognition as civilis, synonymous with citizen; city dwellers, free and possessing dignity and honour, to participate in discussing urban – political – matters in parliament. This marked the initial transformation of the republic. Practically, the plebeians’ struggle was never anything but a fight to gain recognition as civilis, citizens – city dwellers – police or polis – people with dignity and honour. Holding the status of city dweller; free, possessing dignity and honour, was presented as an absolute, irreplaceable requirement for them to engage in discussing city – political – matters in parliament. A free human has never meant anything other than a human with dignity and honour.