Introduction
Alongside the manoeuvre to scrap direct regional elections, which would concentrate political power in the hands of a few, another emerging trend raises further anxiety over the state of democracy in Indonesia.
Among the inclusion of the amendment to the General Elections Law in Program Legislasi Nasional 2026 (the 2026 National Legislation Programme – Prolegnas) is a proposal for a “permanent coalition” among parties.
This concept was proposed by Golongan Karya (Golkar) during its National Leadership Meeting held late last year and quickly received the backing from Partai Amanat Nasional (PAN) and Partai Solidaritas Indonesia (PSI). Both based their support on the need for national stability, especially in the political domain.
The initial speculation was that this is Golkar’s answer to Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB) Chairman Muhaimin Iskandar’s call for taubat nasuha (sincere repentance) among some cabinet ministers. His remark suggested an internal conflict within the ruling Koalisi Indonesia Maju Plus (KIM Plus).
With no visible resistance against the proposal, one question surfaces: what are the political costs of establishing such a permanent arrangement?
Consensus over Competition?
Since Reformasi, Indonesia has maintained a complex multiparty presidential system. The constitution ensures the executive body has a strong authority to carry out its functions. Nevertheless, this system, by design, creates a condition whereby the legislative body could remain fragmented owing to the number of political parties in the seats.
One party or another usually ends up retaining the highest number of seats, but no one has ever formed a single majority within Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR).
This, of course, creates a problem for any president of the day, as their agenda and programme might be stalled by the legislative gridlock should they fail to command good support in DPR.
Presidents are thus incentivised to construct a big coalition to ensure they can execute their function. However, this practice creates a political landscape defined by consensus rather than competition.
Coalitions are often formed before elections, but these are not rigid, as losing coalitions may see component parties joining the winning coalition. Case in point: President Prabowo Subianto’s Gerakan Indonesia Raya (Gerindra) was part of the ruling coalitions post-2014 and 2019 presidential elections.
Meanwhile, parties are also not “beholden” to the group, allowing them to oppose from within or even defect once ideological or strategic divisions arise. PAN was once labelled an “internal opposition” following its disapproval of then president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s issuance of a regulation on mass organisations.
Such a situation diminishes the difference between one party and another, while also creating an aspirational gap between voters’ desires and political manoeuvring in DPR. Perhaps this also constitutes the reason why there is a low public trust in Indonesia’s political parties.
The “permanent coalition” proposal aims to disable the conditions that allow parties to “jump around”, ensuring parties are bound by a firm, pre-electoral contract. It seeks to institutionalise a fixed structure encompassing both the executive and legislative branches.
But why propose this new arrangement now?
A Defensive Reflex
This move is a response to the recent Constitutional Court’s abolition of the presidential threshold that dictates only parties with 20% of total seats in DPR or 25% of valid national votes could field candidates for presidential elections.
The high threshold had been something of a comfort zone for parties, incentivising them to coalesce with each other but barring each from nominating its own presidential candidate. As a result, the number of contesting presidential candidates has been kept at a minimum (at two to three pairs) since 2009, the year when this threshold was first instituted.
The last time Indonesians had a wide selection of candidates was in the 2004 election, with five contesting pairs. Bu
Now, imagine what will happen after the threshold is abolished altogether. The entire status quo of inter-party cooperation and competition is shaken up, allowing any party to aim for the presidential office.
Against this backdrop, the permanent coalition proposal can now be read as the parties’ endeavour to maintain a semblance of this previous status quo. Such an arrangement neutralises the potential of member parties fielding their own candidates while consolidating political support around a specific figure. It also ensures that parties will stick to a power-sharing structure instead of competing for power accumulation.
Consequently, if all the parties agree to this permanent coalition arrangement, the abolition of the presidential threshold loses its meaning; candidacy chance remains restricted and controlled by elites.
Lessons from the ‘70s
Arguably, the creation of a permanent coalition carries some DNA similarities with the party fusion policy during the New Order. Often euphemised as a “simplification” of the party system, this policy forced 10 political parties to merge into three separate strands – Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (PPP) for the Islamic bloc, Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (PDI) for the nationalist bloc and Golkar, Soeharto’s own vehicle – to establish political stability.
A stability, indeed, followed, especially considering how turbulent the Liberal Democracy era (1950-1959) was. This period saw a highly turbulent cabinet setup (seven cabinet dissolutions in less than 10 years). Within 25 years, the post-fusion New Order only saw six cabinet turnovers as each completed its full term (five years, as opposed to the one or two years of cabinet lifetime during the Liberal Democracy era).
But what were the costs? The system effectively stunted 25 years of organic party growth, preventing them from accruing necessary political capital—in both social and financial domains. In essence, they were detached from the grassroots.
Despite the forced fusion, the parties failed to homogenise the various aspirations of their constituencies, as evidenced in the surge of the number of parties contesting in the 1999 election, many of which were breakaways of the three fusion parties. However, quantity does not ensure equality; these new parties did not have a strong grassroots grasp still, and, as a result, all of them, with the exception of PKB, lagged behind the three fusion parties in terms of total national votes.
Power Concentration
Both the p
Among others, this means that public financing of parties remains at a minimum, forcing parties to seek to alternative funding sources, such as wealthy patrons with vested interests. Large and increasing number of parliamentarians and cabinet members are also shown to have direct ties to private companies.
Oligarchy carries an inherent risk. Not only does it impede parties from prioritising public interest, but it also transforms them into extractive institutions. In the economic domain, it also stifles the opportunity to innovate, as competition is discouraged, ultimately leaving the entire country worse off.
Structural Remedies
This permanent coalition proposal indicates a plausible amnesia on the political elites’ side about the cost of the party-fusion policy, which carries the same DNA as this arrangement. Alternatively, they may simply fail to comprehend the various aspects of political stability.
Political stability does not mean regime security. Even the kind of stability achieved during the New Order era eventually snapped, owing to various domestic forces as well as the impacts of the financial crisis.
More recently, Malaysia’s decades of political stability under the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition also crumbled in the 14th General Election (GE14) in 2018, serving as a cautionary tale against regimes that mistake stability for security.
In Indonesi
To shift from extractive to inclusive institutions, the state must dismantle the concentration of power by enforcing political pluralism. Sustainable democracy requires a broad distribution of political power instead of a permanent coalition that narrows elite accountability.
This effort should begin with amending the Political Party Law to mandate internal democratisation. Currently, party leadership is determined by closed oligarchic mechanisms that alienate public participation. Implementing mandatory open conventions for presidential candidate selection would force parties to answer to constituents rather than patrons.
Furthermore, the amended law on legislative bodies (MD3) should be revised to institutionalise proportional power-sharing. This revision is necessary to prevent a legislative monopoly by the ruling coalition. Currently, majoritarian mechanisms allow a large coalition to sweep all leadership positions in DPR.
Here, an example from the United Kingdom proves instructive, where opposition parties are also guaranteed chairmanship in key oversight committees, such as the Public Accounts Committee. This ensures checks and balances against a large coalition. To conclude, only by broadening political participation and securing the opposition’s role can Indonesia develop inclusive institutions that support the unfinished task of democratisation.
