Only nine parties managed to get more than the 2.5 percent electoral threshold which means that the rest either have to disband the party or merge with other parties to achieve the threshold. Of course the next elections will again have a large number of parties because it is profitable to do so. It would be a good idea if the KPU made a rule whereby those party officials who already failed in one election were not allowed to hold similar positions in a new party but I would not try holding my breath until that happens.

With ballot papers sometimes larger than broadsheet newspapers it will take some time before the final tally can be made as simply unfolding and refolding the paper takes a considerable amount of time. The reason that the papers are so large is that there were so many parties and each party fielded as many candidates as possible so that the campaign funds would be easier to raise. In at least one district the party funds were generally less than two hundred dollars per party but many of the candidates contributed from their own pockets in the hope of securing themselves a seat.

One of the weird things about the way that seats are allocated is that a party can get less than one percent of the vote in every district and still get seats in the house. This is, ostensibly, to ensure that all of the people are represented in the government. This is a noble intention but does not work out in practice as those elected generally do not represent anything but their own interests.

A preferential voting system with seats allocated by district would do much to ensure that the people knew who was supposed to be representing them and had somebody they could contact with their aspirations and grievances. The current system puts the political parties above the voters which is not how a healthy democracy works.

With over thirty parties vying for seats in four separate elections (DPR, DPR Province, DPRD and DPD) held on the same day you would thing that there would be something for everybody but most of the smaller parties are only trying to get government funds for taking part in the election. The rest of the parties are the same old faces with the sae old promises few of which, if any, will be kept.

At the time of writing the Democrat Party is in the lead with around twenty percent of the vote. That means there are twice as many who don’t care about the election as there are who picked the most popular party. The political elite need to look at what they have done to create this srt of situation.

Of course with ballot sheets as big as newspaper broadsheets some of the voters may have decided it just wasn’t worth the struggle.