New parties bank on powerful figures for survival

The new year marked a start to a journey for two new political parties, which have both set their sights on contesting the 2029 legislative and presidential elections. From the outset, the National Resonance Party (PGB) and the People’s Movement Party (PGR) have associated their identities with national figures widely seen as potential contenders in the 2029 presidential race. This emphasis on personal endorsement signals a shifting pattern in Indonesian politics, raising questions about whether parties are moving away from their foundational role as institutions for political education and cadre development.

The PGB was launched on Jan. 17 under the leadership of Ahmad Rofiq, a former secretary-general of the Perindo Party and a member of the Joko “Jokowi” Widodo - Ma’ruf Amin campaign team in the 2019 presidential race. The PGB has openly declared its support for President Prabowo Subianto’s bid for a second term in 2029.

A day later, the PGR announced its transformation into a political party. It grew out of the People’s Movement, a volunteer network that backed Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar in the 2024 presidential election. The party is chaired by Sahrin Hamid, who served as Anies’ spokesperson during the campaign. In its declaration, the party described Anies as a “role model” and a symbol of its ideological struggle, as well as the figure it hopes will try another luck in 2029.

Electorally, this strategy offers the new parties clear short-term incentives. Prabowo secured 58.59 percent of the vote alongside Gibran Rakabuming Raka to win the 2024 race. Anies, running with Muhaimin Iskandar, garnered 24.95 percent. These levels of support provide significant political capital that can, at least symbolically, be transferred to parties aligning themselves with these figures.

Few would deny that these moves are nothing sort of early maneuvering ahead of the 2029 election. They also see the launch of these parties as indicative of a broader shift in the function of political parties - transforming from institutions of representation and cadre building into electoral vehicles anchored to individual personalities. In this view, parties are shaped less by ideology, policy platforms and organizational structures than by calculations of a figure’s electability.

History suggests that while new parties often stand a reasonable chance of qualifying as election participants, they face a much steeper climb in translating participation into seats, given the parliamentary threshold of 4 percent of the national vote.

In the 2024 election, the General Elections Commission (KPU) recorded 43 registered political parties. Of these, 40 entered the verification process and 24 were declared eligible to compete - comprising 18 national parties and six Aceh-based local parties. Of the 18 national parties, only eight managed to beat the parliamentary threshold.

A similar pattern was evident in 2019. Of the 16 parties that went through the verification process, 14 qualified to contest the election, yet only nine won seats in the House.

These figures indicate that even among parties that qualify to run, only about half ultimately gain parliamentary representation. For newly established parties, the odds are considerably slimmer.

Recent electoral experience reinforces this trend. Several new parties succeeded in qualifying as participants, including the Gelora Party (declared in 2020), the Ummat Party (2021) and the Nusantara Awakening Party (PKN, 2022). Their vote shares, however, fell well short of the threshold.

In the 2024 election, Gelora secured just 0.84 percent of the vote. Ummat received 0.42 percent, while PKN garnered only 0.22 percent. Even relatively new parties that have competed in two election cycles have yet to break through. The Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), for instance, has remained below 3 percent in successive elections, while the Garuda Party’s support stagnated at around 0.5 percent and declined in subsequent contests.

It is in this light that the declarations of new parties in 2026 merit closer scrutiny: Can they offer political agendas that are genuinely distinct and relevant to voters? Or do they instead entrench a trend toward the personalization of politics - where parties function primarily as electoral vehicles for individual figures rather than as enduring institutions of public representation?