Prof.Imron Cotan: Political Parties Must Present New Ideas for Millennials and Generation Z
Jakarta – Observer on global and strategic issues, Prof. Imron Cotan said that in order to gain voter support and pass the electoral threshold, new political parties and non-parliamentary political parties are challenged to be able to present new and fresh ideas, while offering solutions to problems faced by Millennials and Generation Z, who account for around 50 percent of 206 million voters (BPS, 2022).
Based on the findings of Kompas, new political parties (political parties) or non-parliamentary political parties are faced with a fierce electoral battle against political parties that existed before, while the voter niche is narrowing to around 15 percent, said Prof. Imron.
“The important thing to note 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 were born earlier,” said Prof. Imron at the Moya Institute National Webinar with the theme “Challenges and Opportunities for New Political Parties in the 2024 Election”, Friday, 21/7/2023.
Meanwhile, on the same occasion, the Executive Director of the Indonesian Survey Institute, Djayadi Hanan, outlined a number of challenges that must be faced.
First, political parties are faced with a low Party ID (party identity). Second, political party volatility is high at the provincial level, but tends to be low at the national level.
“So there is a tendency of more than 50%, voters will choose the same party in the 2024 elections,” said Djayadi.
Third, the interest of voters to support new parties tends to decrease. The highest new party performance occurred in 2004.
“The new party’s total vote in 2004 was 21.3 percent, only losing to Golkar which received 22 percent more. That number decreased to 7.2% in 2009 and beyond,” said Djayadi.
Fourth, the number of parties that have entered parliament in recent elections tends to be stable. This means that people’s choices tend to be stable towards the same parties.
“The average age of the party is above 15 years. Only two parties are over 10 years old. This means that the parties in the DPR will survive. This makes it difficult for new parties to enter.” concluded the Executive Director of LSI.
Fifth, new political parties are not widely known in the public. The new party, according to Djayadi, only has about 60 percent of the popularity to sustain it in parliament. “Efforts to socialize the party are key. The problem is the residence time is less than seven months. It is necessary to accelerate the recognition of the party by the public,” he said.
Sixth, all political parties have the same tendency regarding economic, political and social policies. The political parties have not been able to differentiate themselves from each other in this matter.
“That is what causes the choice of party to be stable. What distinguishes between parties at this time is only a matter of how the relationship between Islam and politics. The question is, which niche will the new party play in?” he said.
Even so, there are still opportunities for new political parties and non-parliamentary political parties to pass the threshold.
On the other hand, Secretary General of the Gelora Party Mahfudz Siddiq said that there were consequences for the new political parties by simultaneously establishing the Presidential and Legislative Elections in 2024. According to him, the event which was 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. The only way is to join in on the endorsement of certain presidential candidates,” said Mahfudz.
