Durian – The Indonesian Constitutional Court (MK) on Thursday, 2 Jan. 2025 decided no electoral threshold needed for presidential candidacy and all eligible political party could propose their candidates, revoking previous rule of 20 percent for combined seats in the House of Representatives of collective political parties or 25 percent votes from single party nomination from previous national legislative election’s result.
The decision was made based on a judicial review over article 222 of Law No. 7 issued in 2017 on Elections, requested by four students from Islamic State University (UIN) Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta and three other groups in separate reviews.
According to the panel of judges at the court, presidential threshold based on the seat percentage at the House is forcing the logic of a parliamentary system into a presidential system.
The requirement of presidential threshold is opposing the goal of the Constitution, which wants to grant the people of Indonesia to have vary presidential candidates. The judges’ considerations were also include the facts from previous presidential elections that used electoral threshold, showing lack of candidates.
The court also mentioned that comparative studies with other countries that are using presidential system like Indonesia, there is no electoral threshold set.
“Stating that article 222 of the Law No. 7, Year 2017 on Elections…against the Constitution 1945 of the Republic of Indonesia and is not legally binding,” said the Chief Judge of the Constitutional Court Suhartoyo when reading the court decision along with eight other constitutional judges.
Two constitutional judges gave dissenting opinions, saying that the court does not have judicatory to judge the review as previously it has rejected 36 similar review requests.(***)s
