Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 353 Third International Conference on Sustainable Innovation 2019 – Humanity, Education and Social Sciences (IcoSIHESS 2019) The Decline of Ideology in Indonesia: Parliamentary Threshold and Cleavage among Political Parties in coping with the 2019 Election Ridho Al-Hamdi Department of Government Affairs and Administration Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Yogyakarta, Indonesia Email: [email protected] Abstract—This paper examines the response of Indonesia’s analyzed on the political cleavage among political parties parties in dealing with the parliamentary threshold in the 2019 based on their ideology and organizational degree: Islam vs. election. It has a twofold objective: to discern the development secular parties or major vs. small and medium parties. of political ideology in Indonesia’s post-New Order regime and Though to government system in Indonesian has to identify the current political cleavage among political parties similarity with other country are Philippines and America, particularly between Islam and secular parties or major and small parties. Methodologically, it is qualitative research by the candidate classified depends the higher votes until applying the in-depth interview and online news collection as threshold of votes (Nasruallah,et all, 2018) data-gathering technique. The research finding demonstrates The urgency of this study is mapping the political that the political ideology in recent Indonesia is waning and cleavage among Indonesian political parties in responding to towards the end of ideology. If it is so, it can harm the party the 2019 parliamentary threshold. With such a map, it can be system in Indonesia and will be what so-called as known the difference of positions each party. Based on this “depoliticization of party” because of the lack of people trust. consideration, the paper aims to find out the political Some evidence can show it. First, the party’s response to the cleavage among Islam and secular parties or major, small, parliamentary threshold issue is no longer considering and medium parties in responding to the 2019 parliamentary ideological and organizational motives, but due to pragmatic goals. Second, several Islamist parties are in one coalition with threshold. secular parties in term of responding to the parliamentary The election of the 2014 introduced the impact of issues threshold. Likewise, small parties have the same position as neither positive nor negative creates problems for major parties in coping with such an issue. It indicates that the implementation election included the procedural and ideological contestation is waning and submerged. threshold of political election ( R Sarofah, BEC Widodo, et all, 2016). The result could be utilized as the consideration Keywords: Parliamentary threshold; political parties; the 2019 and suggestion for policymakers, House of Representative, election; ideology; Indonesia especially the Special Committee of the electoral bill or so- I. INTRODUCTION called as “Pansus RUU Pemilu” in order to pay deep attention to the electoral justice approach in deciding the The electoral system in Indonesia is always changing parliamentary threshold. With this approach, all parties from time to time, whether the change for electoral obtain fair treatment. threshold, voting method, seat allocation or district magnitude. In the recent Indonesian political debate, the II. RESEARCH METHOD electoral threshold is one of the fascinating issues which can This paper applies the qualitative research method be examined further. (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011: 3-4; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992: 6; According to Reynolds & Reilly (1997: 88), the threshold Silverman, 2001: 32; Devine, 2002: 197-215; Patton, 2002: is the minimum level of support which a party has to earn 14). Among five kinds of qualitative research, namely representation, either legally imposed (formal) or only narrative, phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic mathematically de-facto (effective). In terms of the and case study, this paper prefers to adopt the case study due parliamentary threshold, Indonesia adopts the effective to its relevance. Drawing on Creswell (2013: 97), Gerring parliamentary threshold in the 1999 and 2004 elections. (2004: 352), Schramm (in Yin, 1994: 12) and Flyvbjerg Since 2009, it applies the formal parliamentary threshold (2011: 301-302), this study defines a case study as intensive with 2.5 percent. In 2014, it transformed into 3.5 percent research which explores one or more cases or a decision or a and, in turn, moves to 4 percent in 2019. set of decisions for particular objectives within a bounded Although the parliamentary threshold has already system (a case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over legalized by the House of Representative, the political time through detailed and in-depth data gathering by cleavage in responding to this issue still occurs amongst involving multiple sources of information. In doing so, the political parties. Some of them concur while others reject the case study is a correct choice and a standard method in social parliamentary threshold. Therefore, it is essential to be science. Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 273 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 353 Data are gathered from political parties which compete in TABLE I. THREE KINDS OF POSITION TOWARDS THE PARLIAMENTERY THRESHOLD the 2019 election in order to gain a completed perspective related to this issue. There are two different types of data. First is empirical data which come from interviews with No Position Considerations elites of 16 political parties who have important positions at The simplification of parties has a worthy goal to strengthen the cohesive and robust party system, the national and local boards. In other hand, noted, the election 1 Approval presidential system, and the consolidated needs clear strategic to support good election in Indonesia. democracy. Due to, the election has important role for created good It harms small parties. government in future (Widodo, Darumurti & Nurmadi, 2 Refusal The restriction of parties is a regression. 2016). The increase in threshold violates the constitution. The is a different policy between central and local 3 Ambiguous Second is news data which taken from reputable online boards. media spreading on the internet such as Detik, Republika, Kompas, Tempo, Vivanews, Merdeka, Sindonews, Okezone, There are 11 parties which categorized in the nationalist- CNN Indonesia, Beritasatu, Tribunnews, and television secular group. Among them are major, middle, and small news. Selecting the parliamentary threshold is because such parties. According to Picture 1, three major parties have an issue is exciting to be investigated further in the current approval position while the rest is in the refusal side. In the discourse of Indonesian election. middle category, one party is in the approval while the rest is In-depth interview and documentary were employed as in the refusal. In the small category, three parties have the data-gathering techniques (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992: 63; approval position while two parties have refusal and Patton, 2002: 4, 293, 343-44; Manheim & Rich, 1986: 132- ambiguous positions respectively. For more detail, it can be 38; Silverman, 2001: 83-114; Yin, 1994: 96). For the in- examined further. depth interview, it was conducted approximately eight PDIP proposes the increase of threshold between 5 and 6 months between November 2017 and June 2018. Even, one percent. The big percentage is better because each party has informant can be interviewed twice. Meanwhile, the a chance to create its fraction in the parliament (Republika, documentary was carried out before, during, and after the 16 January 2017). Idham Samawi, senior politician of PDIP, field research. Supporting data coming from credible online argues that one of the Indonesian problems is the weaknesses news and appropriate scholarly references will also be of the constitutional system mainly related to the party utilized in this study. system so that the increase of parliamentary threshold is The given data will be analyzed into a fourfold step. First positive in making a robust party system. Idham states that is reducing data. The data which appear in written field notes the threshold is not profitable whether for major or small are selected, simplified and, transformed into the data parties because each party has a different view in dealing display. As the second step, displaying data is compressing a with this issue. 1 Likewise, Bambang Praswanto and Yuni set of information which allows depicting concluding Satia Rahayu, PDIP cadres in Yogyakarta, argue that the remarks. Third is drawing and verification. Since the increase of threshold has a prime objective to simplify the commencement, the author should decide what things mean number of political parties because the number of Indonesian – noting regularities, patterns, explanations, possible parties is too many. For them, the threshold stabilizes the configurations, causal flows, and propositions. Final presidential system and restricts the emergence of new concluding remarks may not appear until data collecting is parties.2 It is good progress for Indonesian democracy. done, although the author argues to have been proceeding Previously, back to the year