TRIBUNNEWS.COM, JAKARTA – Discussions on the elimination of the parliamentary threshold (PT) are considered to have the potential to bring positive impacts on the quality of democracy in Indonesia in the future.
The parliamentary threshold is the minimum percentage of valid national votes that a political party must obtain in order to secure seats in the House of Representatives (DPR).
The parliamentary threshold in Indonesia is currently set at 4 percent of the total valid national votes, in accordance with Law Number 7 of 2017 on Elections.
Haykal, a researcher for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), said that abolishing the parliamentary threshold could actually strengthen the principles of proportionality and representation in legislative elections.
“In our opinion, the elimination of the parliamentary threshold in the DPR will result in more proportional legislative election results,” Haykal told reporters on Tuesday (2/3/2026).
“One of the negative impacts of the application of this parliamentary threshold is the loss of votes,” he continued.
Haykal cited the 2024 elections with a parliamentary threshold of 4 percent as an example.
Of the total 18 election participants, only eight political parties were able to exceed the threshold and were entitled to seats in the DPR.
He noted that the number of votes that were not converted due to the threshold was not small.
“Our records from the 2024 elections show that out of the 10 parties that failed to pass the 4 percent threshold in the DPR, there were 17 million votes that were wasted or could not be converted into seats,” he said.
According to him, the removal of the parliamentary threshold will be a step to ensure the proportionality of election results while increasing the degree of representation of the people in parliament.
Furthermore, Haykal reminded that the Constitutional Court (MK) had previously confirmed the issue of the parliamentary threshold in its decision.
He considered that the idea of removing the parliamentary threshold was in line with the direction of the Constitutional Court’s ruling, which emphasized the importance of maintaining the sovereignty of voters’ voices.
“Ruling 116 has removed the 4 percent threshold and requested that lawmakers reformulate it in order to minimize wasted votes,” he concluded.
This article was published on Tribunnews.com with the title “Perludem Assesses the Elimination of the Parliamentary Threshold Strengthens Electoral Proportionality,” https://www.tribunnews.com/nasional/7786146/perludem-nilai-penghapusan-ambang-batas-parlemen-perkuat-proporsionalitas-pemilu.