WHEN BEING INDEPENDENT IS LOVED AND DESPISED: THE DYNAMICS OF INDEPENDENT CANDIDACY IN INDONESIAN POLITICS

Abstract

Independent candidacy is allowed at the regional elections in Indonesia, but not at the legislative and presidential elections. While the civil society played a vital role in pushing for the changes, the key remained with the political parties whose elected representatives fomi the parliament that passes the electoral regulations. Political parties agreed to the compromise ot setting a threshold of between 6.5 and 10 percent of the voters list for independent candidates, because they saw the need to appease the increasingly alienated civil society and electorate. In addition, independent candidacy was not introduced at the presidential elections as the political parties regarded the presidential appointment as being too important to leave to the risk of an independent candidate winning it, due to the benefits they stand to gain from being ruling coalition members in the form of cabinet seats and other material advantages. More importantly, the legislative elections were still kept as exclusive to political parties to ensure that all elected legislative members are from political parties, so that all elected executives (regardless of political affiliations) have to accommodate the interests of the political parties by proxy of their members who are elected into the legislative bodies. This paper will use the case study of Ahok's brush with independent candidacy in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, due to the high profile of the man and the electoral division as well as the unprecedented backlash from the political parties, to support the arguments.