Coattail Effect of the 2019 General Elections
As the electoral system remains unchanged, it is important for political parties to understand how this coattail effect worked in the 2019 general elections.
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The legislative elections will again be held simultaneously with the presidential election in 2024. If the legislative and presidential elections are held at the same time, there will be a coattail effect. This means that the amount of votes that political parties gain, among other aspects, will be affected by which presidential candidate they nominate or support.
In order to maintain or increase their votes, political parties need to nominate presidential and vice presidential candidates who will boost their electability. If this is hard to secure, political parties should at least nominate candidates that will have no negative impact (reduce votes).
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As the electoral system remains unchanged, it is important for political parties to understand how this coattail effect worked in the 2019 general elections. How many votes did the presidential candidates gain with respect to that of their supporting party or electoral coalition? Did the coattail effect have the same impact on all political parties in an alliance? If not, which parties benefited the most? Were some parties harmed, and why?
2019 coattail effect
The exit poll the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) conducted in cooperation with Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) on voting day of the 2019 general elections indicated a correlation or significant connection between supporting a presidential ticket and the number of votes their supporting parties gained.
Overall, 76 percent of voters in the Onward Indonesia Coalition (KIM) supported the Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin ticket while only 24 percent supported the Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno ticket. Conversely, 78 percent of voters of the Prosperous Justice Coalition (KAM) supported Prabowo-Sandi while only 22 percent supported Jokowi-Amin.
If we look at the votes given to parties contesting the legislative election, we find that their gains were consistent with which presidential ticket the party supported. While 85 percent of Jokowi-Amin voters supported the political parties allied under the KIM, only 15 percent supported parties in the KAM. On the other hand, 67 percent of Prabowo-Sandi voters supported KAM parties while 33 percent supported KIM parties.
What was the cause and effect between the votes that presidential tickets gained and the votes gained by the supporting parties? An experimental survey to ascertain the influence of candidates on the votes of parties that the SMRC conducted in December 2017 found that preisidential candidates did indeed affect the number of votes political parties won. This effect can be both positive and negative.
The experiment results found that support for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) was higher if voters were informed that the party had nominated Jokowi, compared to if voters did not have that information. The same was true for the Golkar Party, which gained more votes if people knew Golkar had nominated Jokowi compared to if people did not have that information.
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When voters were told about which political parties were backing other candidates, voter support for the parties was either unaffected or became negative. In other words, the nominations by certain parties were a factor that affected voter support for the parties. This means that there was a coattail effect in the 2019 general elections.
Who was lucky, who was not?
The correlation between the vote tallies of candidates and their supporting parties varies from one party to another. At the national level, the exit poll data showed that the strongest support for Jokowi-Amin came from people who voted for the PDI-P (94 percent), the National Awakening Party/PKB (74 percent), the National Democratic Party/Nasdem (73 percent), Golkar (62 percent), and the United Development Party/PPP (55 percent). Interestingly, a fairly large number of voters supporting the PPP (45 percent) and Golkar (38 percent) also supported Prabowo-Sandi. This shows that grassroots support for both parties was split in the presidential ballot, especially that of the PPP.
The largest support for Prabowo-Sandi came from the Great Indonesia Movement Party/Gerindra (88 percent), the Prosperous Justice Party/PKS (88 percent), the National Mandate Party/PAN (78 percent) and the Democratic Party (64 percent). Despite this variance, support for KAM parties appeared to be more solid.
On the other hand, Jokowi-Amin voters mostly supported the PDI-P (33 percent), Golkar (14 percent), PKB (13 percent) and Nasdem (12 percent), while Prabowo-Sandi voters mostly backed Gerindra (25 percent), PKS (16 percent), PAN (12 percent) and the Democrats (11 percent). It is worth noting that quite a few Prabowo-Sandi voters supported Golkar (10 percent).
It is also interesting that the proportion of voters in both camps that supported the PPP were almost the same, at 5 percent from the Jokowi-Amin camp and 4 percent from the Prabowo-Sandi camp. In other words, the number of voters who supported Golkar and PPP were evenly spread between the two presidential tickets pairs.
According to the total votes that political parties gained across 80 constituencies for a seat in the House of Representatives (DPR), there are three types of connection if we apply the Pearson correlation coefficient.
The data indicate that candidates do not have equal influence on their backing parties. Further analysis on examining the correlation between the candidates’ and parties’ electoral gains in each constituency show an even wider difference in the candidates’ influence. According to the total votes that political parties gained across 80 constituencies for a seat in the House of Representatives (DPR), there are three types of connection if we apply the Pearson correlation coefficient.
First is a significant and positive correlation, meaning that the higher the gains of candidates in a certain constituency, the higher the gains for that constituency among the parties in the electoral coalition. In the KIM the gain was enjoyed by the PDI-P, the PKB and Nasdem.
Second is a significant and negative correlation as regards the PPP and the Crescent Star Party (PBB). This means that the higher the number of votes Jokowi-Amin gained in a certain constituency, the greater the reduction in votes for the PPP and the PBB.
Third is an insignificant correlation, or indistinct correlation, which happened to the other parties in the Jokowi-Amin electoral coalition: Golkar, the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI), the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Indonesian Unity Party (Perindo).
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In the meantime, parties the in KAM saw a significant, positive correlation. The higher the votes gained by Prabowo-Sandi in a certain constituency, the greater the support for KAM parties.
In this way, we can see that in the electoral coalition that backed the winning presidential ticket, the candidates had a positive influence only on the PDI-P, the PKB and Nasdem. The PPP and the PBB experienced a negative coattail effect. The other parties tended to be unaffected by the candidates they had backed. On the side of the KAM, all parties in that coalition enjoyed a positive influence from their candidate pair.
Scenario for 2024
The data on the coattail effect in the 2019 general elections reaffirm that the parties that contest the 2024 general elections should conduct thorough analysis before nominating their presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Several factors need to be taken into account. First, the coattail effect generally favors political parties that have the closest ties to an electoral coalition’s candidates. This usually concerns two aspects: ideology and consistent strategy. The PDI-P, the PKB and Nasdem enjoyed the strongest coattail effect particularly due to these two factors.
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Bendera partai politik peserta Pemilu Serentak 2019 menghiasi jalan layang Jalan Kramat Raya, Senen, Jakarta Pusat, Selasa (5/3/2019). Di tahun politik ini, hampir tidak ada ruang publik yang bersih dari stiker, poster, spanduk, baliho, hingga bendera partai politik yang berlaga dalam Pemilu Serentak 2019.
Jokowi is a PDI-P cadre, while Amin has the closest tie to the PKB. Nasdem was more consistent in its strategy, being the first party outside of the PDI-P to throw its weight behind Jokowi after the 2014 legislative election, and consistently supporting Jokowi and the PDI-P until the 2019 presidential election. This factor of consistent strategy may have caused Golkar to fail to enjoy any significant coattail effect: Golkar switched from Prabowo, Jokowi’s rival in the 2014 presidential election, to join the government.
Second, parties that are most different from candidates in terms of ideology may experience a negative coattail effect, such as in the case of the PPP and the PBB. The ideological distance between political parties in Indonesia tends to be vague both socially and economically, but in terms of religion (Islam) and politics, the PBB and the PPP tend to lean to the right (more religious), while the PDI-P and Jokowi lean to the left (more secular).
Consequently, the PPP and the PBB are strong in the regions, but because they joined the KIM, both parties saw reduced support. Jokowi’s influence on voter support for these two parties was negative.
All minor parties in the 2019 general elections (averaging an electability of 5 percent or less), especially in the KIM, had no sponsoring role and merely joined the coalition. Therefore, they did not gain from the coattail effect.
Third, theoretically speaking, small parties generally do not enjoy a coattail effect if they only show their support for an electoral coalition (West and Spoon, 2013). Minor parties gain from the benefits of the coattail effect if they play a role in sponsoring the candidates, both in nominating the presidential candidate (has strong ties to the candidate) and the vice presidential candidate. All minor parties in the 2019 general elections (averaging an electability of 5 percent or less), especially in the KIM, had no sponsoring role and merely joined the coalition. Therefore, they did not gain from the coattail effect.
Taking up a sponsoring role is indeed not easy for any political party, not just small parties, because of the presidential threshold. If this requirement is maintained for the 2024 general elections, one possible solution is for parties to first form an electoral coalition and then collectively determine their presidential and vice presidential candidates. This could undergo a process like a joint convention. Through this means, the opportunity would be open for all coalition members, both big and small parties, to gain equitable distance with the candidates they nominate.
Djayadi Hanan
Djayadi Hanan, Executive Director, Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI); political science lecturer, Paramadina University
(This article was translated by Aris Prawira)
