The Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) requested a new arrangement regarding the national and regional election schedule from the Constitutional Court through material review of a number of articles in the Election Law and Regional Election Law.
“The schedule for holding elections is a very serious issue and has an impact on other derivatives in the main dimensions of holding elections,” said Lulus’ attorney, Fadli Ramadhanil, in the preliminary examination session in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court, Jakarta, today.
In this case,eludem questioned the constitutionality of Article 1 paragraph (1), Article 167 paragraph (3), Article 347 paragraph (1) of Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections and Article 3 paragraph (1) of Law Number 8 of 2015 concerning Governor Elections , Regent, and Mayor.
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Tulisdem asked the Constitutional Court to declare that the constitutional electoral system is simultaneous national elections and simultaneous regional elections. There is a gap of two years between the implementation of national and regional elections.
National simultaneous elections consist of presidential, DPR and DPD elections, while regional simultaneous elections consist of elections for governors, regents and mayors as well as provincial and district/city DPRD.
According toeludem, the simultaneous elections for five ballot boxes that have been carried out so far have weakened the institutionalization of political parties and efforts to simplify the party system, as well as reducing the quality of people’s sovereignty in the implementation of elections.
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The implementation of the presidential, DPR and DPD elections at the same time as the provincial and district/city DPRD elections is considered to result in political parties not having enough time to carry out recruitment and cadre formation to nominate legislative members at three election levels at once.
Parties no longer have the opportunity, space and energy to carry out cadre formation to nominate legislative members at all election levels at the same time. This situation makes political recruitment practices transactional and undemocratic.
Apart from that, Tulisem believes that holding simultaneous elections with a system of five ballot boxes once every five years means that political parties do not carry out political recruitment on an ongoing basis.
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“The party seems to have been complacent for five years and only got busy again carrying out recruitment and political cadre formation in a very limited time, such as 1 year or 1.5 years before the nomination of legislative members,” said Fadli.
On the other hand,eludem also highlighted the large number of invalid votes in the simultaneous elections so far. This, in part, was caused by confusion among voters who received five ballot papers at once.
“If the simultaneous elections are divided into two stages consisting of national simultaneous elections and regional simultaneous elections, this will make it easier for voters to cast their votes, thereby minimizing the high number of invalid ballots,” saideludem.
The inaugural hearing of Case Number 135/PUU-XXII/2024 was chaired by Chief Justice Suhartoyo. At the end of the trial, the panel of judges gave the applicant 14 days to perfect their application. (Ant/P-2)
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