What happens to a representative democracy when voters no longer trust the very organizations designed to represent them? If parties are unpopular, should we simply replace them—or rethink how they work?
In this Kelas Pakar segment, Edbert Gani Suryahudaya (Ph.D student, Political Science, University of Toronto) lays out a clear, research-grounded case: political parties are still essential, but the widening gap between parties and citizens threatens democratic relevance. Why this matters now: declining party identification and growing cynicism can push politics toward gridlock, performative conflict, or extra-parliamentary pressure, none of which reliably produce accountable policy.
“Democracy of course needs political parties… one of the functions of parties is to filter and aggregate those preferences.” — Edbert Gani Suryahudaya
2) The Backbone of Representation: Why Parties Still Matter
“Demokrasi tentu butuh partai politik… Bagaimana caranya kita mengagregasi preferensi yang berbeda-beda itu dalam konteks pengambilan kebijakan dan arah negara?” — Edbert
- Parties are scaling machines for representation. Millions of citizens have diverse preferences; parties bundle those into governable agendas.
- Parties also recruit candidates, coordinate coalitions, and maintain continuity between elections—critical for policy delivery, not just campaign promises.
- Healthy party culture matters as much as structure. “Negara-negara demokrasi yang baik… punya budaya berpolitik yang baik juga.” The point isn’t the number of parties, but whether the system turns preferences into accountable policy.
Real-world analogy: Think of parties as operating systems. You can swap apps (policies) all you want, but without a stable OS (parties), nothing runs coherently.
3) When Trust Erodes: The Representation Gap
“Ketika masyarakat tidak percaya pada partai politik, itu sinyal mengkhawatirkan… menunjukkan gap antara ekspektasi masyarakat dengan apa yang dilakukan partai.” — Edbert
- The “gap” is not apathy; it’s disconnection. Low party ID can indicate disappointment rather than disengagement.
- Consequences when the gap widens:
- Policy becomes “acak-acakan”—citizens don’t buy what parties sell, making governance brittle.
- Citizens seek extra-parliamentary routes (e.g., mobilizations, courts), risking instability if legislative responsiveness stays low.
- Democracy feels like “formalitas”—ritual without representation.
Accessible framing: Trust is the latency in the democratic network. When latency is high, users (voters) route around the system; throughput (policy) suffers.
4) Can We Do Politics Without Parties? The Limits of Independents and Referendums
“Mungkin enggak sih berpolitik tanpa partai?… Ada contoh calon independen… Ada juga referendum seperti di Swiss. Tetapi tentu saja itu terlalu melelahkan dan tidak bisa diaplikasikan ke semua negara.” — Edbert
- Independents exist—even in the U.S.—but scale poorly as a system of governance.
- Referendums are powerful but heavy. Switzerland’s frequent direct votes rely on unique institutional and civic capacities; they’re not a general-purpose substitute for party systems.
- Bottom line: Modern democracies are built as representative systems. Parties are the core interface between citizens and the state.
Mental model: Direct democracy is a specialized tool—great for certain high-salience decisions, not a replacement for the day-to-day OS.
5) Rules Shape Party Systems: Lessons from the U.S.
“Kalau kita belajar di Amerika… yang membuat mereka hanya menjadi dua partai? Itu adalah sistem politiknya… simple majority.” — Edbert
- Electoral rules shape outcomes. Single-member, simple-majority districts tend to compress competition into two major parties (Duverger-like dynamics).
- But parties aren’t monoliths. Internal factions, networks, and ideological currents compete and evolve.
- Edbert points to the U.S.: conservative shifts, Tea Party mobilization, and legal-elite networks (e.g., Federalist Society) as examples of intra-party influence over time.
Takeaway: Reform isn’t only about creating new parties; it’s also about engineering healthier competition inside existing ones—factions, primaries, caucuses, transparent rules-of-the-game.
6) From Disillusionment to Design: How to Rebuild Trust
“Punya partai baru tidak selalu solusi… pertanyaannya: apa yang mau kita lakukan di dalam partai-partai tersebut? Bisakah kita memotong jarak antara partai politik dan masyarakat?” — Edbert
Actionable directions consistent with Edbert’s analysis:
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Open channels for participation
- Lower barriers to entry within parties (youth wings, issue caucuses, transparent membership pipelines).
- Build local organizing capacity that actually listens and feeds into program design.
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Make accountability measurable for voters
- Align electoral rules, disclosure, and performance dashboards so citizens can evaluate incumbents clearly.
- Strengthen linkages between campaign promises and legislative behavior for easy public tracking.
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Encourage healthy internal competition
- Institutionalize leadership contests, policy debates, and votes within parties to avoid winner-takes-all stagnation.
- Publish internal rules and outcomes to normalize contestation as a sign of vitality, not weakness.
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Leverage civic mobilization productively
- Indonesia’s civic energy is a strategic asset. Channel it into structured engagements (public consultations, whitepaper submissions, MK litigation when necessary) that parties must respond to.
“Kekuatan demokrasi Indonesia… ada di masyarakatnya yang tidak pernah lelah melakukan mobilisasi.” — Edbert
7) Personal Take: An Engineer’s Lens on Party Reform
From a systems-design perspective, the problem isn’t that “parties exist,” but that their feedback loops are too slow or opaque.
- Observability over opacity
- Build “dashboards” for representation: track how party MPs vote vs. party platform; surface attendance, bill sponsorships, committee activity, and local service.
- Shorten feedback cycles
- Regularized town halls, open primaries/polling, and digital participation reduce the time between citizen signal and party response.
- Incentives, not heroics
- Reform rules to reward responsiveness (e.g., candidate selection tied to member votes, matching funds tied to local organizing metrics).
- Normalize internal competition
- Treat intra-party contests like unit tests for ideological coherence and policy quality—not threats to unity but proofs of vitality.
In other words: don’t “rewrite the OS” if you can refactor modules, add observability, and fix incentives. Most democracies that work didn’t abolish parties; they made them legible, permeable, and competitively responsive.
8) Conclusion
Edbert’s core message is both cautionary and constructive: representative democracy needs parties, but parties must earn their relevance by closing the gap with citizens—through open participation, clear accountability, and real internal competition.
“Selama kita terus berjejaring dengan partai politik—begitu pula sebaliknya—masih ada potensi untuk reform from within.” — Edbert
A question to sit with: If you could change just one rule or practice to make parties more accountable next year, what would it be—and how would you measure success?
Watch the full Kelas Pakar episode on MALAKA to hear Edbert’s complete argument, then bring one reform idea to your local party or civic group this month.