Govt Needs House Opposition

· 4 minutes read

The party division of the 2019-2024 House of Representatives (DPR) is not expected to change much compared to the current legislature. The presidential system requires stable supervision and support from the DPR.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The presidential system requires a balance of power in the House of Representatives (DPR). Potential party divisions between the Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma\'ruf Amin coalition and the Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno coalition could create stability in House supervision and support.

According to the Kompas R&D quick count, nine political parties are expected to claim seats in the House. Five parties that backed the Jokowi-Ma’ruf presidential ticket – which leads the quick count – have a combined tally of 53.87 percent of votes. The five parties are the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party, the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Nasdem Party and the United Development Party (PPP).

Four other political parties with a combined quick count tally of 36.26 percent backed the Prabowo-Sandiaga ticket: the Gerindra Party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the Democratic Party and the National Mandate Party (PAN).

The General Elections Commission (KPU) is currently collating the official vote tabulation for the 2019 election through a tiered recapitulation method.

Nevertheless, PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto said on Tuesday (4/23/2019) in Jakarta that he expected the political map would not change. If Jokowi-Ma’ruf was elected, a 5-4 party division would establish a powerful opposition that would control the House. "A healthy democracy also needs checks and balances," he said.

Separately, Gerindra deputy secretary-general Andre Rosiade said that if Prabowo-Sandi were defeated, the party would remain outside the government as a balancing force for the government coalition.

"We understand that politics is dynamic, especially the fact that many parties cannot stand to be outside the government. Even though some parties have left the Prabowo-Sandi coalition, we will remain consistent outside the government," he said, while also calling on all parties to wait for the KPU’s official vote tabulation.

KPU count

The vote recapitulation for the 2019 election is scheduled for completion on May 22. By 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday (4/23/2019), Jokowi-Ma’ruf had 55.35 percent of the vote, while Prabowo-Sandi had 44.65 percent on the KPU’s Situng (vote count information system) application. The tally covered 196,576 polling stations, or 24.17 percent of the total 813,350 polling stations.

Meanwhile, the latest results for the House legislative election showed that PDI-P was leading with 19.6 percent, followed by the Golkar Party with 14.06 percent and Gerindra with 11.26 percent. The data covered 65,496 polling stations, or 8.05 percent of the total 813,350 polling stations.

However, the votes of the legislative election still need to be converted into House seats using the Sainte-Lague method.

Political map

Political parties frequently change their political stance over time, as was seen with Golkar, PAN and PPP, which were part of the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa coalition in the 2014 election. However, the three parties gradually switched over to the winning Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla coalition after the election.

The PDI-P’s Hasto said this shift occurred because Jokowi-Kalla was elected in 2014 with minimal support in the House. The Jokowi-Kalla coalition, which initially comprised four parties – the PDI-P, PKB, Nasdem and Hanura – then expanded political support in the House.

The addition of Golkar, PAN and PPP significantly increased support for Jokowi-Kalla in the House, from 44.1 percent to 68.9 percent.

Hasto said that this time, it appeared that consolidating political support was unnecessary. If Jokowi-Ma’ruf won the election, pro-government and opposition parties were relatively balanced, so the Jokowi-Ma’ruf coalition would not seek to recruit additional parties unless Jokowi desired this."We talked about this earlier, that if [pro-government parties] dominated the House, this would actually be unhealthy in terms of democracy," he said.

On the other hand, the composition of the Jokowi-Ma’ruf coalition would also have an impact on sharing power. "Those in [the coalition] who have sweated from the beginning to support Jokowi-Ma’ruf must certainly be appreciated by allowing them to share in managing the future government," said Harto.

Balance of power

The Democratic Party, which is currently taking the stance of a political intermediary, is likely to continue its role in the 2019-2024 term.

Democratic Party deputy secretary-general Renanda Bachtar stressed that when the party was not pro-government, such as in 2014-2019, it would retain an intermediary or moderate stance. The party’s political culture was objective in its stance towards various government policies, he said.

As such, the Democratic Party would never be purely opposition, like opposition parties in other countries, Renanda stressed. "Our attitude towards the government is to be a balancing force. We will appreciate those [policies] that are properly executed, while we will criticize [poor policies] and ask that they be improved," he said. (AGE/SAN)

Editor:

kompascetak