The General Election Commission (KPU) has completed the conversion of votes from the February parliamentary elections into seats in the House of Representatives. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) emerged as the winner.
KPU leader Mochammad Afifuddin announced on Sunday that the PDI-P, which won around 25.3 million votes, will receive 110 seats in parliament for the 2024-2029 legislative period. This corresponds to almost 19 percent of the total 580 seats.
This figure represents a decrease of 3 percent from the PDI-P's current representation in the House of Representatives. However, the PDI-P is still the largest party in Parliament and is thus entitled to the Speaker's post under the current Law on Legislative Institutions (MD3).
Recently, there has been speculation that the parties behind President-elect Prabowo Subianto's victory wanted to amend the law to give their camp a greater chance of securing the speakership and increasing their political influence after the change of government. Meanwhile, a PDI-P politician claimed that it could be outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, nominally a PDI-P member, who could issue a government regulation (Perppu) instead of a law to prevent the winner of the general election from influencing the agenda of the House of Representatives for the next five years.
Both allegations were denied by the palace and the pro-Praboo parties.
Behind PDI-P are the Golkar Party with 102 seats and Prabowo's own Gerindra Party with 86 seats. Golkar is one of the key members of the Indonesia Onward Coalition (KIM), while Gerindra is the de facto leader of the alliance.
Both parties performed better in the February poll than in the 2019 election, when they won 85 and 78 seats respectively.
