Political Party Experts and Figures Talk about Challenges and Opportunities for New Political Parties in the 2024 Election
Jakarta – New political parties (political parties) or non-parliamentary political parties are faced with a fierce electoral battle against political parties that already existed before. Meanwhile, Kompas’ findings show that the voter niche is narrowing to around 15 percent.
This was said by an observer on global and strategic issues, Prof. Imron Cotan in a Webinar organized by the Moya Institute with the theme “Challenges and Opportunities for New Political Parties in the 2024 Election”, Friday (21/07).
Imron explained that in order to win voter support and pass the electoral threshold, new political parties and non-parliamentary political parties are challenged to be able to present new ideas, while offering solutions to problems faced by Millennials and Generation Z, who account for around 50 percent of 206 million voters (BPS, 2022).
The prominence of local figures with national and global perspectives is also very important to break the domination of the political elite which is piled up in big cities on Java Island.
“The important thing that needs to be noted is that the Millennial Generation and Generation Z are detected as not having a “fixed” ideological choice, apart from being fixated on gadgets. If they are able to attract the support of the younger generation using gadgets, new political parties have the potential to lead to the existence of political parties that have been born before,” said Prof. Imron
Meanwhile, Secretary General of the Gelora Party Mahfudz Siddiq said that the new political parties would receive consequences by concurrently establishing the Presidential and Legislative Elections in 2024. According to him, the events which were held at the same time made the public’s attention more concentrated on the Presidential Election and sidelined the issue of who would pass to parliament through the Pileg.
“Political parties that have presidential candidates will benefit more because they can boost the electability of their party, in contrast to new political parties. This requires extra effort by new political parties to socialize. One of the ways is to get involved in endorsing certain presidential candidates,” said Mahfudz.
In the same place, Perindo Party Tuan Guru Bajang Zainul Mazdi said that amidst the various challenges, new political parties still have opportunities and great opportunities to qualify for parliament or win seats in the DPR.
“For example, my own party (Perindo), which in the last 1.5 years has experienced an increase in electability and continues to rise to this day. This proves that public acceptance of new political parties continues to exist. Moreover, Perindo runs programs that directly touch the lives of the lower classes, said Zainul.
The Executive Director of the Indonesian Survey Institute, Djayadi Hanan stated, there were seven factors that influenced the votes for political parties, namely having a figure covering all electoral districts; political party image; political party turnover; the ability to understand the map of competition between political parties; the charisma of the candidate at the local level; aware of the characteristics of voters; and election effects.
According to him, new political parties should not rely on just one strategy to gain votes, but should also be supported by strategies that are appropriate at the local level, by bringing in popular local figures.
Executive Director of the Moya Institute, Hery Sucipto, said that due to the dynamic contestation of politics and democracy in 2024, it is hoped that the elections will take place in a democratic, peaceful and mature manner while at the same time presenting qualified leaders.
“Old and new political parties both have challenges and opportunities. The new narrative they carry will have a different impact. Identification of issues is the
most important thing to convince voters, “concluded Hery. [*]
