JAKARTADAILY.ID - Next year, Indonesia will be enlivened by the democratic party in three general elections at once. Legislative elections, presidential elections, and regional head elections. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), the political party that won the 2019 election, has launched a discourse on changing the electoral system from open proportional to closed proportional since last January.
The proposal from PDIP regarding a closed proportional system was opposed by several other political parties and became a polemic in society. Currently, the election system for 2024 is still being discussed at the Constitutional Court.
In this regard, digital expert and social media observer, Anthony Leong in his big data research originating from Kazee Media Monitoring on social media, discussed the differences in the views of party officials in the 2024 election between using a closed proportional system and an open proportional system.
In his research, Anthony explained that the majority of netizens so far support an open proportional electoral system rather than a closed proportional electoral system. He stated this based on the big data that had been collected during the analysis period from January to February 2023.
"The total conversations during the analysis period were 227,772 data. Where netizens discussed an open proportional system, there were 155,197 data with a percentage of 68.1 percent, and closed proportional 72,575 data and a percentage of 31.9 percent," said Anthony in Jakarta, Friday, March 10, 2023.
The CEO of Menara Digital explained specifically the sentiment in reporting on open proportional systems and closed proportional systems. Where in open proportion the positive sentiment is greater than the negative sentiment, namely positive sentiment as many as 95,861 conversations, 46,812 negative conversations, and 12,524 neutral conversations.
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Meanwhile, in closed proportion positive and negative sentiments are almost balanced. The positive sentiment was 31,563 conversations, 27,889 negative conversations and 13,123 neutral conversations.
"Three of the most relevant sentiments in the open proportional discussion are open proportional, better, and concrete. Closed proportional elections can trigger corruption and are contrary to democracy, the government and KPU's plan to change the open proportional election system to a closed proportional system," said Anthony.
Apart from that, he explained that from the point of view of public communication and public reaction, they agree more with an open proportional system, because it can directly assess the candidates for people's representatives. If it is a closed system, it is the party that decides.
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"Yes, then what must be fixed is the party system in Indonesia which is concretely the revision of the Political Party Law, not the election system that we change, how can parties cadre their members to be the best and can be open to the public, because that is the public's hope, and that hope must be heard and approved by the government," said Anthony.
This discussion stems from the desire of the PDIP to request that the Constitutional Court state that the election system is carried out in a closed manner. The DPR and the government have said that the electoral system should remain open. Of the nine political parties in parliament, only the PDIP supports the election being held again behind closed doors.
