Women's Representation at 30%, PKS: Rounding Up Not an Issue

Chair of the Election and Regional Election Winning Division of the Central Leadership of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Mardani Ali Sera, stated his party welcomes the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the penalty for failing to meet the minimum 30% female candidate quota. He said the court’s ruling strengthens affirmative action for women in electoral contests and should be fully supported as it aligns with the spirit of the Election Law. ‘As for the calculation, if the mechanism is rounding up, it’s not an issue,’ Mardani told Tempo on Tuesday, 26 May 2026. In Judgment No. 128/PUU-XXIV/2026, the Constitutional Court upheld the disqualification penalty for political parties failing to meet the minimum 30% female representation in legislative candidate lists. Mardani said the penalty outlined in the ruling is strict, but for PKS, the provision is not an issue as the party already met the requirement in the 2024 election. ‘It is worth noting that in the 2024 election, PKS was the only party to meet the minimum 30% female representation requirement. So, whether rounding up or not, it’s not a problem,’ said the member of the House of Representatives’ Commission II. However, under Election Commission Regulation No. 10 of 2023, the minimum 30% female representation in each electoral district was previously calculated using a rounding-down mechanism. According to Article 8(2) of Election Commission Regulation No. 10 of 2023, rounding up is permitted if the decimal is less than 0.5. Election Commission Commissioner Idham Holik stated that the regulation had been fully consulted with the House of Representatives before implementation. ‘During the legal drafting process of the Election Commission Regulation on election stages, all provisions were consulted with the House of Representatives,’ he said on 8 May 2023. On Monday, 25 May 2026, the Court ruled in Case No. 128/PUU-XXIV/2026 that political parties failing to meet the minimum 30% female representation in candidate lists face disqualification by election authorities. In its legal reasoning, the Court stated that if the calculation for the minimum 30% female quota results in a fraction, election authorities must round up, not down. The Court provided examples, such as a calculation resulting in 3.10 percent female candidates, where the figure must be rounded up to the higher number. Specifically, in an electoral district with a maximum of 12 legislative candidates, a 3.10 percent quota would require at least four female candidates instead of three.