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Indonesia's male-dominated parliament disadvantages female politicians

Article · March 2019

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Ella Prihatini
University of Western Australia
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Disiplin ilmiah, gaya jurnalistik

Indonesia’s male-dominated parliament disadvantages

female politicians
Maret 28, 2019 12.45pm WIB

No place for women in Indonesia’s election. www.shutterstock.com

Indonesia’s male-dominated parliament disadvantages

female politicians
Maret 28, 2019 12.45pm WIB

The world’s most populous Muslim majority nation, Indonesia, is the third- Penulis
largest democracy in the world. The archipelagic country in Southeast Asia has
hundreds of ethnic groups, and half of the population are women.

But my recently published research shows that male politicians from the
Ella S. Prihatini
country’s most populous island, Java, dominate Indonesia’s parliament.
Endeavour scholar and PhD candidate,
University of Western Australia
My research found the majority of elected candidates during Indonesia’s 2014
general election were Muslim married men in their 40s to 60s. They mostly
 
reside in Java and are university graduates.
Alih bahasa
This tendency has discouraged women from entering politics as the system
Bahasa Indonesia
tends to prioritise men.
English

The result is low representation of female politicians in Indonesia’s

parliament. In the 2014 legislative election, only 97 out of 2,467 female
candidates, or less than 4%, won seats. This result dragged women’s share in the parliament to
17.03%, down from 18.03% in the previous election.

Non-inclusive parliament system

For my research, I looked into the characteristics of over 6,000 candidates in the 2014
elections. What I found from various sources indicated that Indonesia’s parliament is far from
representative of Indonesian diversity.
More than 80% of the seats in the 2014 legislative election went to men. Of these elected
lawmakers, 75% lived in Java, and 90% of them were university graduates. Less than 2% were
young lawmakers.

People between the ages of 40 and 59 were over-represented. They accounted for 12.89% of
the national population, but almost 39% of legislators in the parliament were in this age
group. The same applies for the 50-59 group, which accounted for 8.43% of the national
population.

Elected female candidates and their places of residence.

This unfair representation starts with the nomination process. In the 2014 election, only 37%
of the candidates were women, and 27% of them lived outside Java. Only 5% of them
represented the young generation between 20 and 29 years old.

Women’s loss

Female lawmakers’ share in the parliament still stands below 20% despite a 30% gender quota
policy. The policy, introduced in 2004, requires parties to nominate at least 30% female
candidates.

The persistent small number of female lawmakers in the parliament shows that the policy has
not been effective in encouraging women’s electability.

Some party leaders have defended their decision by saying that high-quality female
candidates are really difficult to find. They also argue women’s electability is relatively low.

Such preference is apparent when the parties tend to put male candidates at the top of voting
cards while placing female candidates at the bottom. The lower a candidate is placed in the
voting cards, the less likely he/she is to win. Every time candidates’ positions in the voting
cards drop one level this reduces their odds of winning by 63.5%.
 Of the elected female candidates in the 2014 election, 47% were running as the number one
candidate. Of the elected male candidates, 65% were running as the number one candidate. As
political parties tend to nominate male politicians in the top positions, this creates a
significant disadvantage for women politicians.

Another discouraging trend showed most elected female candidates were related to
incumbents. Almost half of them (45 of 97) are either married or blood-related to political
leaders.

This shows that men still take control of politics and women can’t win without support from
leading male politicians.

Not only does this hurt women’s participation in politics, but it also can lead to political
oligarchy. This is a political system in which a small number of party elites and their families
dominate decision-making processes in the parliament. As the majority of party elites are
men, this can further hurt women’s participation in the country’s political systems.

Women politicians


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