Discourse on youth and politics is currently being popularly discussed. Issues that arise ahead of the general election in 2024 are the discourse on implementing a closed proportional system, the presidential threshold, and the reduction of the parliamentary threshold.
The issue of this parliamentary threshold was also raised by two students of the Faculty of Law, 51动漫, Raymond Jonathan and Desak Ayu Gangga Sitha Dewi, during the “Second Conference on Social and Political Sciences (KISIP): Democracy, Youth, and the 2024 Election”. The activity was held on Wednesday (15/3/2023).
Through an interview with FH News on Monday (20/3/2023), Raymond explained their background in choosing to discuss lowering the parliamentary threshold. According to him, dropping the parliamentary threshold is essential to expand democratic space, but a policy scheme for young people in parliament must accompany it.
“In particular, we raised the Group Representative Constituency (GRC) scheme because the Singapore Parliament inspired it. I got inspiration while I was in IISMA at Universiti Malaya,” said Raymond.
Based on a survey released by CSIS Indonesia, 41% of Indonesia’s population is young, and 54% of voters for the 2024 General Election are young. Even so, the representation of young people in politics is still relatively low. The causes of the low representation of young people occur due to the need for more space for young people to participate in political parties, low political interest and trust, limited resources, and the stigma of young people who are considered less competent.
“To encourage youth representation in politics to be higher, there are alternative options in the form of lowering the parliamentary threshold and adopting the GRC scheme. Reducing the parliamentary threshold opens access for new political parties, and the adoption of the GRC scheme ‘forces’ political parties to involve young people in the group constituency scheme,” explained Raymond.
The practical application of the parliamentary threshold is stated in the Constitutional Court Decision Number 48/PUU-XVIII/2020; the parliamentary threshold should be 1%. Applying a parliamentary threshold of 1% provides space for young people to convey their ideas and ideals in forming laws and policies in the DPR RI. Meanwhile, the GRC was first adopted in Singapore in 1988 to increase the representation of minority groups as members of parliament. GRC can increase the participation of young people in general elections because it can increase the representation of young people in the DPR.
“At first, we were both just for fun. Think of it as the last conference before graduation, but it turned out to be one of the selected panelists from nearly 200 other abstracts,” said Raymond.
In the end, Raymond said that structural and systematic changes through law must also be balanced with political education and increasing young people’s trust in politics and democracy by political administrators.
“For the implementation of the upcoming general election, the DPR and the government must immediately lower the parliamentary threshold to 1% through an Amendment to the General Election Law. This aims to facilitate access for new or small political parties, especially youth parties. However, further studies are still needed regarding applying the GRC to suit Indonesian conditions to boost the representation of young people in the Parliament. These changes also need to be regulated in the General Election Law, “he concluded.
