By: Felia Primaresti

Researcher of Political Affairs at The Indonesian Institute, Center for Public Policy Research (TII)

Background

Political parties are the main foundation for the existence and smooth running of the democratic system in every country. This statement reflects the fact that in a democratic structure, political parties are not just electoral entities but also agents of change and communication links that connect the wishes of citizens and the administration of government. Thus, the role of political parties is not only limited to the formal political arena but also involves their responsibility in forming policies, representing a diversity of views, and maintaining the balance of power, which is essential for the survival of democracy.

The opinions put forward by political scientists such as Yves Meny and Andrew Knapp (1998) regarding the function of political parties open insight into the complex dynamics of democratic systems. First, the mobilization and integration functions are the foundations for political parties to mobilize citizen participation, create solidarity, and integrate various political interests into a coherent whole. Second, political parties act as a tool to shape and direct influence on voter behaviour, creating voting patterns that reflect people’s political preferences and identities.

Furthermore, political parties function as means of political recruitment and are essential in maintaining the continuity and regeneration of the political elite. Political parties act as a vehicle for individuals with political aspirations to enter the formal political stage, form new leadership, and create continuity in government administration. Finally, as a means of policy elaboration, political parties contribute to developing and detailing a policy agenda that reflects their values, goals, and vision. Thus, political parties play a role in the formal political process and become catalysts for dynamics that strengthen the foundations of democracy.

A numerical approach that views political parties as units that form a single whole provides a solid foundation for understanding the dynamics of party systems in the political context of a country. In this framework, Indonesia can be classified as a country that adheres to a multiparty system, where various political parties are active and participate in the political process.

Indonesia’s multiparty system produces a number of complex and varied implications, especially during each political period. The diversity of political parties reflects the plurality of opinions and aspirations of society but also presents challenges in forming coalitions and making effective political decisions. In this context, the dynamic interactions between parties are crucial because they determine political stability, government sustainability, and policy implementation.

However, in the first general election in 1955, which became an important milestone in post-independence political life to date, five major parties were formed, namely the Indonesian National Party (PNI), the Indonesian Muslim Syuro Council (Masyumi), Nahdatul Ulama (NU), Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), and Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI). The number of parties participating in the general election reached more than 29 parties, including independent parties. Legislative members are distributed equally between Java and outside Java through a proportional general election system. In the 1950s to 1960s, a multiparty system was implemented without a majority winner, but high competition occurred in the era of parliamentary democracy.

From the 1970s until the 1971 General Election, Indonesia still adopted a simple multiparty (simple pluralism) system. Nine political parties had survived since the 1955 elections and Golkar participated in the 1971 elections. This election recorded an interesting phenomenon with Golkar’s spectacular victory beyond the expectations of many parties. Even though the military (Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia/ABRI) did not participate in the election and Golkar was inexperienced, after the election took place, Golkar won more than 63%, marking the beginning of a new era for Indonesia, namely the New Order.

Although the term “simple multiparty system” was still used in the New Order era, there was a lack of competition between parties. This was caused by the domination of the hegemonic party at that time. This phenomenon gives rise to the view that in fact, the party system tends to lead to a single-party system (single-entry). Golkar is more focused on maintaining the status quo than competing significantly with other parties.

During the reform period, Indonesia has again adopted a multiparty system, which means that until today, it has adopted a multiparty system. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that for decades prior to the reform period, freedom of expression, organization, and assembly has been limited. Therefore, politicians’ desires to form political parties can be realized when reform opens space for this freedom. As a learning process, increasing the number of political parties should be seen as a natural occurrence in a society experiencing high political enthusiasm. However, this also has many implications, such as the emergence of diverse ideologies, fluid changes (flexibility) in coalitions, domination of general elections by particular big parties, and the existence of a proportional general election system.

In terms of ideology and political spectrum, for example, Indonesia is generally divided into two, namely Islamist parties such as the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) or the United Development Party (PPP) and nationalist parties such as the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP). However, research notes from The Indonesian Institute (2019) written by Arfianto Purbolaksono show that there are several typologies of political parties in Indonesia. Arfianto explained the typology of political parties in Indonesia based on the type of electoral party. He underlined that most political parties in Indonesia have a catch-all-personalistic type where political parties in Indonesia are generally dominated by certain figures but still offer rational campaign programs.

For example, the parties in question are the PDIP with the figure of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the Gerindra Party with the figure of Prabowo Subianto, the Democratic Party with the figure of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and the National Awakening Party with the figure of Muhaimin Iskandar. Apart from that, there is also a catch-all-programmatic type of party where certain ideologies in the party have faded and rational programs for society are emphasized. Examples of this type of party, according to Arfianto, are the Golkar Party, Nasdem Party, and Hanura Party (Arfianto, 2019).

The diversity of political party ideologies in Indonesia, even tending towards ideological ambiguity, has given rise to new phenomena. Kumoro (2013), in his report, stated that the ideology of Indonesian political parties tends to be unclear, which is the reason for the lack of strong ties with the grassroots. A survey from the Saiful Munjani Research Center (SMRC) in December 2017 showed that the level of closeness of Indonesian people to political parties was only around 11.7%.

Based on this, changes in political coalitions in Indonesia occurred quickly and were fluid. This has also resulted from the conformity of a single ideology of political parties in Indonesia, which must be based on Pancasila, which makes political parties not have a clear standing on policy issues, which are often trapped in political transactions for electoral purposes only and undermining public aspirations. This is also reflected in the fact that coalitions of political parties are varied from those created at the national level in presidential and legislative elections, and the local levels in local heads’ elections.

In the context of the Joko Widodo (Jokowi) administration, for example, it was recorded by the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) that during 2014-2022, as many as 5.4 million hectares of Mining Business Permits (IUP) had been issued. This figure is known to be the highest compared to the previous government which was only at 3.9 million hectares. After further investigation, based on the Mining Advocacy Network report (2022), there are several names within Jokowi’s government circles who are affiliated with and have held strategic positions in mining companies. These names include the Minister of Defence Prabowo Subianto who is listed as the owner of the Nusantara Energy Resource, the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment in Indonesia, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan as the largest shareholder of PT Toba Sejahtera, Erick Thohir as one of the Chairmen of the Jokowi-National Campaign Team (TKN), who is in the recent period known as Jokowi’s BUMN Minister, it is proven that his sibling is the President Director of PT Adaro Energu Tbk.

In other words, the explanation above shows how the composition of people arranged in coalition greatly influences how decisions and policies are made. This is also happened not only in the mining industry obviously, but also in the decentralization policy, fertilizer support for the farmers, investment policy, and import policy as well due to political transactions amongst parties’ representatives in various sectors.Therefore, such fluid coalitions of political parties have caused inconsistency in the government regarding public policy issues.

Furthermore, reflecting on the 10 years of Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) government, for example, in the 2014 election, he ran against Prabowo Subianto from Gerindra. The same thing happened in the 2019 election, when although the Gerindra Party was the competitor of the election winner, the party’s leader, Prabowo, was instead made the Minister of Defense in the second term of Jokowi’s government. This change was also seen again in the dynamics leading up to the 2024 election. Jokowi and his family, who were involved in politics through the PDIP, allegedly defected to another group through codes.

That indication is not without reason. There are several indicators, such as Gibran Rakabuming, a young PDIP politician who is also Jokowi’s son, running to become vice presidential candidate alongside Prabowo Subianto, who incidentally is not a candidate supported by PDIP. Kaesang Pangarep, Jokowi’s youngest son, was suddenly appointed General Chair of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) exactly two days after he joined. It is known that PSI is also the coalition party that is supporting Prabowo-Gibran in the 2024 election contest. Previously, PSI was known as a hardcore opposition towards Prabowo and a big supporter of Jokowi.

Those cases can certainly cause policy instability and waste of resources. This also happened during the transition period between the administrations of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Joko Widodo (Jokowi) in 2014. To accelerate infrastructure development, the SBY administrations created a Master Plan for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development (MP3EI), but this project was not continued during this era, Jokowi’s administration was based on differences in development orientation. Instead of continuing, Jokowi replaced MP3EI with the National Strategy Project (PSN) which focuses on developing agriculture, food insight and toll road infrastructure. As a result, many MP3EI projects during the SBY era were stalled, one of which was the Sunda Strait bridge project (Proyek Jembatan Selat Sunda), which has not been continued until now.

Concerns regarding policy inconsistencies and waste of resources have at least reappeared in the dynamics of the 2024 elections. This is happening because the presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs, Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar (Cak Imin) have firmly decided to not continue the development project in the era of Jokowi, which is the Indonesian Capital City (IKN). ) because it is considered that does not provide benefits to society. It is known that Anies Baswedan and Cak Imin are the candidate pairs supported by most of the government’s opposition parties such as the Nasdem Party (Partai Nasdem), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the Ummat Party and the National Awakening Party (PKB). In the present era of Jokowi’s administrations, it’s interesting to note that PKB is one of the parties engaged in many agreements with him.

The cases mentioned above also show Indonesia’s political parties’ fragility, especially regarding integrity, ethics, and accountability. This has brought the alarms of the urgency of internal party reform, particularly related to recruitment, regeneration, and nomination for political leadership candidacy. However, on the other hand, this phenomenon can also be a balancing act and, at the same time, a “control tool” for the dominance of certain parties in elections as one of the implications of the multiparty system implemented in Indonesia if it is done in a legal and constitutional manner.

Apart from that, the implementation of a multiparty system also causes the general election system in Indonesia to implement a proportional system. This is done because not all parties can represent themselves in parliament. One of the implications of implementing this system is the parliamentary threshold policy as a minimum requirement for political parties to obtain parliamentary seats.

This concept is assumed to reduce the number of parties in parliament to increase the effectiveness in bargaining over interests and the government policy-making process. Although parliamentary thresholds are implemented in Indonesia, research shows that this does not always simplify the composition of political parties in parliament. For example, the electoral threshold policy in the 1999 General Election Law and changes to the 2003 Law did not significantly simplify political parties and even resulted in the formation of new parties.

The 2004 election showed that the four main parties dominated, but the emergence of the Democratic Party as a new party with great success motivated other new parties. Even though there is a parliamentary threshold, the number of political parties participating in elections continues to increase from 24 in 2004 to 38 in 2009. Although the number declined in 2014, the number increased again in 2019 and 2024. The formation of new political parties in Indonesia is influenced by state funding and the decisions of party elites who want to enter the electoral arena.

The impact of parliamentary thresholds also results in unequal representation in parliament, with the votes of parties that do not reach the threshold being wasted. This condition shows that not all voters’ voices are reflected in parliament, while Indonesia is a very diverse country. That also means that the parliamentary threshold is insufficient to represent such diversity in Indonesia. As an alternative, consideration is needed to implement a proportional representation system that incorporates mixed aspects, such as the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) System used in countries such as Germany and New Zealand. This can help address inequities in political representation and ensure that all voters’ votes are counted correctly.

References

Books

Indonesia, W. L. (2023). Kegagalan Inisiatif Pencabutan Izin dan Evaluasi Izin Bagi Pemulihan Hak Rakyat dan Pemulihan Lingkungan [Failure of Permit Revocation and Permit Evaluation Initiatives for Restoring People’s Rights and Environmental Restoration]. Jakarta: WALHI.

Purbolaksono, A. (2019). “Melihat Tipologi Partai Politik di Pemilu 2019” [“Looking at the Typology of Political Parties in the 2019 Election”]. Indonesia Report 2019. Jakarta: The Indonesian Institute.

Journal

Gunandjar, A. (2008). “Sistem Multipartai di Indonesia” [“Multiparty System in Indonesia”]. Jurnal Legislasi Indonesia [Indonesian Legislation Journal], 1-12.

Websites

Gunawan, I. (2022, January 7). Deretan Orang Dekat Jokowi dalam Bisnis Tambang Batu Bara [Rows of People Close to Jokowi in the Coal Mining Business]. Retrieved from Kabar24: https://kabar24.bisnis.com/read/20220107/15/1486446/deretan-orang-dekat-jokowi-dalam-bisnis-tambang-batu-bara, accessed on 22/12/2023, at 11 A.M.

Idris, U. (2014, September 7). Proyek MP3EI Tak Dilanjutkan oleh Jokowi? [Jokowi not continuing the MP3EI project?]. Retrieved from Kontan: https://nasional.kontan.co.id/news/proyek-mp3ei-tak-dilanjutkan-oleh-jokowi, , accessed on on 22/12/2023, at 11 A.M.

Sari, E. V. (2014, December 18). “Jokowi Ganti Istilah MP3EI Karena Berbau Politis” [“Jokowi Changes the Term MP3EI Because It Is too Political”]. Retrieved from CNN Indonesia: https://www.cnnindonesia.com/ekonomi/20141218132635-92-19063/jokowi-ganti-istilah-mp3ei-karena-berbau-politis, accessed on 22/12/2023, at 11 A.M.