Indonesia's Election Law Revision: When Participants Write Their Own Rules

Indonesia's upcoming revision of its election law has ignited a behind-the-scenes battle, with both the parliament and the government aggressively pushing to lead the initiative. This struggle is not merely administrative; it signals a deeper calculation over who controls the narrative and, crucially, the "rules of the game" for future political contests.

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When the drafters are the election participants themselves, conflicts of interest become inherent and democracy is vulnerable to being controlled by short-term electoral interests.

The core of the conflict lies in the inherent conflict of interest. A majority of parliament members are party cadres who will again compete in the 2029 elections. The laws they craft directly influence their parties' electoral prospects, making them players, not neutral arbiters. The government, while having different calculations, likely focused on stability, is also not an impartial party.

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Whoever holds the first pen is the one who is most free to determine the direction of these election rules.

This situation is a prime example of "endogenous rule-making," a concept where the competitors in a system also design its rules. Unlike sports, where FIFA sets the rules for competing teams, or financial markets, where regulators govern trading companies, Indonesia's political arena sees election participants drafting their own electoral laws. This practice has historically led to problematic legislation, frequently challenged in the Constitutional Court.

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Both are players, not referees.

The consequences of this self-serving rule-making are predictable: laws plagued by legitimacy issues, systems that favor incumbent parties, and a democratic cycle trapped in "political entrenchment." The article argues that this structural conflict of interest, embedded from the law's inception, is the root cause of why Indonesia's election laws are consistently the most problematic legal products.

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In politics and law theory, this is known as endogenous rule-making, which naturally tends to benefit the rule-makers' position and complicate competition.