Towards of 2019 Election

CIDISS – In accordance with the results of the Constitutional Court Decision of March 2013, simultaneous national legislative and executive elections should be held in 2019. Elections held to elect members of DPR, DPD, President and Vice President and DPRD are routine five-year agendas. The routine is to give space or opportunity to the people to elect state leaders and state authorities every five years.

Through the national electoral concordance is expected not only achieved the goal of budget efficiency and time, but also can be realized several changes at once. First, the increase of government effectiveness because assumed that the government generated through the juxtaposition of presidential election and legislative election is more stable as a result of coattail effect, ie the election of presidential candidate from political party or coalition of certain political party will influence the election of legislative member from certain political party or coalition. Thus, executive-legislative conflict, instability, and even a political deadlock as a complication of a multi-party system-based presidency system are expected to be minimized. This means that the holding of elections will potentially enlarge the DPR’s political support to the elected President.

Election of Legislative (Pileg) and Presidential Election (Pilpres) 2019 will be held simultaneously on April 17, 2019. The series of stages will be done since this year, precisely in October 2017.

These simultaneous elections will certainly have many shortcomings. However, after a careful consideration, this election has more advantages for the country and the people of Indonesia.

Ideally, the election process should take into consideration the integrity, elektabilitas and quality of candidates and encourage the birth of a permanent coalition before the election. But in the context of the constitutional rights of political parties as mentioned in the 1945 Constitution and the consequences of simultaneous elections, the presidential / vice presidential nomination process is not based on election party votes previously. This means that every political party that has qualified as an election participant has the right to nominate a presidential / vice presidential candidate.

Therefore, with the improvements that have been made by the government, the 2019 election is expected to improve the quality of community choice because the voters’ attention should not be split on the choice. (MA)