Review of Election Simultaneity

JAKARTA, KOMPAS - The simultaneous organization of legislative and presidential elections as well as regional head elections has been requested to be re-evaluated. The simultaneity does not make it easier for voters and complicates the work of election organizers. Several election observers have proposed a time gap between the holding of national and regional elections.

On Wednesday (26/2/2025), Commission II of the House of Representatives began inviting several academics and election activists to provide input regarding the evaluation of the 2024 General Election, as well as to offer suggestions on the planned revision of the Election and Regional Head Election (Pilkada) Law.

Those invited were Moch Nurhasim, a senior researcher in the field of politics at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN); Titi Anggraini, an election law lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia; Khoirunnisa Nur Agustyati, Executive Director of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem); and Khairul Fahmi, a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Andalas University.

Moch Nurhasim, in his presentation, stated that there are several reasons for the need to reorganize the simultaneity of elections in Indonesia. One of them is that the goal of achieving more efficient election costs by synchronizing legislative and presidential elections has not been realized. Costs remain high; for example, the 2024 Election required a budget of Rp 76.6 trillion. This is more than double the budget allocated for the 2019 Election, which amounted to Rp 33.73 trillion.

Furthermore, the implementation of simultaneous elections also does not provide convenience for voters. At the presidential election (pilpres) level, the public indeed finds it easier to recognize the candidates competing. However, when faced with legislative elections (pileg), many people find it difficult to identify the candidates.

As a result, there is a symptom of split voting or a tendency for separate or divided choices between political parties and the president in the election.

Not only that, with the simultaneous elections, the presidential candidacy should ideally provide a coattail effect to the sponsoring party or its coalition. However, in reality, this has not been proven. The sponsoring parties often do not gain electoral benefits from the presidential candidate they support.

The main point emphasized by Nurhasim is that the simultaneous election scheme has failed to create a simplification of political parties. What has occurred instead tends to lead to an extremely multiparty system.

According to him, if the simultaneous elections were effective in simplifying parties, there should be parties that are able to gain votes above 30-40 percent. However, the 2019 and 2024 elections showed that fragmentation still occurs, even more extreme.

"Therefore, the assumption that (the election) was held simultaneously to encourage the strengthening or simplification of parties, this also did not happen. In fact, the election winners were a minority, increasingly below 20 percent," said Nurhasim.

Not only that, if you look at the graph of party vote acquisition from the 1999 Election to 2024, the results are almost similar. In other words, the results of the simultaneous election design that began since the 2019 Election are the same as the separate election design that was held previously.

Even when there is a parliamentary threshold, the intended party simplification fails. Likewise, the practice of proportional election systems, both closed and open models, cannot be used as an instrument for party simplification.

"Other combinations are needed. Well, proportional elections combined with simultaneous designs also have no effect. Therefore, other efforts are needed for this process," Nurhasim stressed.

He also offered a mixed system as an option. The mixed electoral system has two main models, namely mixed-member majoritarian and mixed-member proportional. Both systems must be studied and seen which one is appropriate for Indonesia.

"The mixed election system also has the potential to strengthen the presidential system," he stressed.

Titi Anggraini also believes that holding presidential, legislative, and regional elections in the same year is not appropriate. One of the reasons is because the election organizers have to bear a heavy burden. In addition, the simultaneity of the election also disrupts the focus and concentration of election participants. "Regional elections in the same year as legislative and presidential elections, a heavy burden due to the crushing stages of the election and regional elections," she said.

Not only that, the campaign will also not optimally raise local or regional issues and problems. The residue of the presidential election makes candidates tend to replicate national campaign issues and emphasize the branding of the national political coalition rather than the politics of ideas and programs. This is reflected during the candidate pair's campaign debate.

Titi proposed that the implementation of the presidential and national legislative elections be given a two-year gap with the regional and local elections. The presidential and national legislative elections can be held in 2029. Meanwhile, the regional and local elections will be held in 2031.

"So a two-year gap will be given. Only then, (in) 2032 (will) simultaneous selection of election organizers be carried out," said Titi.

In line with Nurhasim, Titi also proposed that the election system be a mixture where voters can still directly choose their candidates as a reflection of the people's sovereignty, and the role of political parties as election participants is maintained.

"The election system that could be an option is actually a mixed election system, so that we no longer debate about open proportional, closed proportional, even though there are more than 400 variations of election systems in the world," said Titi.

Titi explained that this mixed system combines the advantages of a single-member district system of one electoral district, one legislative candidate (caleg), and a closed list proportional system. This system is also adopted in Germany, South Korea, Thailand, and Japan, which countries show good democracy indexes.

"For the people, they can directly elect their legislative candidates through a single-member election system, but parties can also place their cadres through a closed proportional system," he said.

Deputy Chairman of Commission II of the House of Representatives, Aria Bima, said that election activists and academics will be invited back to more specifically discuss the articles in the revision of the Election Law to the Regional Election Law that need to be revised. At least, the results of the meeting on Wednesday can be a picture for Commission II of the House of Representatives to further perfect the election system in Indonesia.

"We hope once again that there will be no setbacks, meaning that we are no longer talking about elections, regional elections indirectly through the legislature, but concerns about the high costs, concerns about how democratic values are ignored in the context of our regional elections through money politics or pressure on voters, this is important for us to pay attention to, I think that's it," said Aria.

On the other hand, Bima continued, the most important thing that must be addressed is that the simultaneity of the election has pluses and minuses in the implementation process. One of them is the psychological factor of the atmosphere of the legislative election to the presidential election which is carried over to the atmosphere of the regional election. As a result, the regional election does not become a celebration of the people, but an elite celebration that smells very conspiratorial with the atmosphere of the presidential election political configuration.

"So we are still calculating whether it is a time factor, or whether it is actually the emergence of changes related to electoral democracy procedures that have changed into electoral autocracy by utilizing regional elections as one of the support processes," he said.