tirto.id – Researchers from the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) have proposed a mixed electoral system with a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) model as a middle ground to balance the proportionality of election results and the simplification of the party system. This proposal stems from Perludem’s study on the size of electoral districts or district magnitude.
“Because we know the basic principle of district magnitude, the smaller the electoral district, the higher the level of competition and the more difficult it is for political parties to win seats. Likewise, the larger the electoral district, the easier it is for political parties to win seats,” said Executive Director Heroik Pratama at the Parliament Complex in Senayan, Jakarta, Tuesday (3/2/2024).
Based on data from the 2024 elections, Perludem divided district magnitude into three clusters: small electoral districts (3–5 seats) with intense competition, medium electoral districts (6–8 seats) with relatively stable competition, and large electoral districts (9–10 seats) with the risk of extreme multiparty competition.
Based on these findings, Perludem believes that a compromise is needed between reducing and enlarging electoral districts. Therefore, Perludem proposes a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system.
In Perludem’s version of the MMP design, the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives is divided into proportional seats, which are elected through a closed list proportional system, and majority seats, which are elected through a First Past The Post system (one electoral district, one seat). This division is done fifty-fifty with the rounding rule always favoring proportional seats.
“So, from this data, ladies and gentlemen, if we divide the number of proportional seats, there are 324 seats, and the number of majority seats is approximately 256 seats. If we calculate 55% and 45%, it is approximately like that. And for the electoral districts, we propose this even though some countries that were mentioned earlier,” he said.
However, this mixed system is only applied in provinces with a minimum allocation of six DPR seats. Provinces with an allocation of fewer than six seats will use a fully closed proportional system to avoid complexity.
This article was published on tirto.id with the title “Perludem Proposes Mixed Election System to Simplify Political Parties,” https://tirto.id/perludem-usul-sistem-pemilu-campuran-untuk-penyederhanaan-parpol-hqqw