TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia's Constitutional Court had just read out the decision on case number 62/PUU-XXII/2024 on Thursday, January 2, 2025. The decision containing the elimination of the presidential threshold provision was read out in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court in Jakarta.

The decision to eliminate the threshold for presidential and vice presidential nominations in the next election clearly opens the door wide for candidate names in the 2029 presidential election. This was conveyed by Aditya Perdana, a Political Science Lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Indonesia (UI).

"The opportunity for all parties, both politicians and non-politicians to become presidential candidates in 2029, is wide open. This means that the potential for presidential candidates in 2029 will increase because there are no restrictions whatsoever," he said as reported by Antara on Thursday, January 2, 2025.

This decision began with a lawsuit filed by four students from the Faculty of Sharia and Law, Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University, Yogyakarta. Then the Constitutional Court granted this lawsuit and read it out.

This has sparked controversy from various parties, especially Constitutional Justices Anwar Usman and Daniel Yusmic who have different opinions. According to them, something like this should have been submitted by political parties and coalitions of political parties or those related to the president. The court should have stated that the applicants in the case do not have legal standing so that the application cannot be accepted.

For information, in the 2024 Presidential Election, the requirement to submit the names of presidential and vice presidential candidates must have 20 percent of the national vote or 25 percent of the seats in parliament. For that, if the supporter still does not meet the requirements, forming a coalition with another party is one way.

According to Justice Saldi Isra, the norm of Article 222 violates morality, rationality, and intolerable injustice. "The presidential threshold, regardless of its size or percentage, is contrary to Article 6A Paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia," he said on Friday, January 3, 2025.

Clearly, Saldi said that the elimination of the presidential threshold means that all political parties participating in the election have the right to propose the names of their presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs. In fact, furthermore, political parties that do not propose the names of presidential and vice presidential candidates will receive sanctions in the form of a ban on participating in the election for the next period.

Taking this into account, UI Political Science Lecturer and also Executive Director of Algoritma Research and Consulting Aditya Perdana, said this would have an impact on the dominant government coalition. "The presidential election competition will certainly affect the dynamics of the cabinet, namely among the ministers," he said as reported by Antara on Friday, January 3, 2025.

According to him, the Constitutional Court's decision on the elimination of the presidential threshold needs to be strengthened in the discussion of the revision of the Election Law which is planned to be held soon to strengthen the legal aspect in the form of a Law.

Hendrik Khoirul Muhid contributed to writing this article.

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