The Lack of Women Candidates, Between Quality and Trust of Female Voters
The issue of women's engagement in the democratic festival is still one of the exciting topics to be discussed. How it can be? To this day the quota of 30 women to fill parliamentary seats has not yet filled the target. In fact, when we see from the comparison of male and female voters, there were more female voters.
According to the data from the General Elections Commission (KPU), the provisional voter list (DPS) for the 2024 election is 205,853,518 voters. Out of this number, 102,847,040 were male voters and 103,006,478 were female voters. Based on the fact above, as a voter women are slightly dominant, but the reality on the ground, men were elected more than women.
Nevertheless, the graph continues to increase from previous years. Based on the data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), there are 575 people sitting in the Republic of Indonesia's People's Representative Council (DPR RI) for the 2019-2024 period. Of these numbers, only 120 congresspersons are women. This means that the share of women has only reached 20.87% of the total members of the DPR RI from the results of the 2019 legislative elections.
a case study in Aceh Provinces, particularly data from the Aceh Independent Electoral Commission (KIP), there were 83 women elected as legislative members from the 2019 election results out of 731 legislative seats in Aceh at both the provincial and district/city levels. This means that there are only about 10 percent of women's representation at the Aceh parliament.
The Executive Director of the Non-Governmental Organization, Mitra Sejati Perempuan Indonesia (MiSPI), Syarifah Rahmatillah, explained that most women legislators nowadays only represent gender, not yet representing women's perspectives. The role of female lawmaker that is truly expected by society is one that has a women's perspective.
According to her, women who will run for the legislature must understand the three functions of the parliament, namely the function of legislation, budgeting, and monitoring. Therefore, women must have the quality so they can fight for the rights of their own people. (aceh.tribunnews.com/24 Desember 2022/Pentingnya Perspektif Caleg Perempuan Berkualitas).
one of the examples is Mega Sulastri, a member of the Bengkulu Provincial Parliament (DPRD) who does not set high targets as a politician. Even though she has served two terms as a female legislator from the Golongan Karya Party (Golkar), she only wants to prove that her abilities are equal to those of male politicians. "I don't have a special mission or issue regarding women. Sitting in the DPRD, I just want to prove that women also have the same abilities as men in political terms," said Mega, Wednesday, December 28, 2022. (jaring.id/2 Maret 2023/ Afirmasi Politik Perempuan Di Bengkulu Belum Maksimal).
When viewed from the history of Islamic politics, women's participation in the public space has occurred in the early days of Islam, namely when the Prophet Muhammad was still alive. Erlies Erviena in her thesis entitled "Women's Leadership in the Quran: Reinterpretation of Quraish Shihab's Thoughts on the Concept of Al-Qawwamah with the Qira’ahmubadalah Perspective" explained that during the time of the Prophet, there were protests from women.
Women feel uncomfortable with the social construction that they face. The rules, views, beliefs, and even the religious language used seem to subordinate them. At the time of the Prophet, among the women who fought for equality between men and women was Umm Salamah during the hijra (migration) occurrence. Even though many women want to join the hijra. Women who played an important role in influencing public decisions or policies during the early Islamic era, among them were Khadijah, Fatimah, and Aisyah. They are seen as women who have certain and ideal capacities. (atjehwatch.com/31 Desember/Peran Perempuan pada Pemilu dan Pilkada2024).
In the current democratic system, the role of women in regulation has its own share. The main reasons for women's participation refer to fairness, equal access to political participation, and equal opportunities for women to influence the political process from a women's perspective.
However, the question remains, have fellow female voters voted for women to fight for women's rights? In cases like this, do women who run for the people's representatives do not have the capacity as fighters for women's interests, or, as stated by the Executive Director of the MiSPI NGO, Syarifah Rahmatillah, women's representation in parliament only complements gender alone, not accompanied by adequate capacity. There is not yet a presence of high brave to speak up in influencing policies among the majority of male legislators.
This question becomes homework for political parties to recruit quality female candidates. Likewise for women voters, with a slightly dominant number of female voters over males and an awareness of voting that is also superior to women than men, the portion of 30 for women voters actually reached the target even more.
Thus, women who also belong to a vulnerable group are no longer the practical political objects of political elites, but political subjects who have a bargaining position and high competitiveness, have adequate knowledge and are able to make political choices freely and intelligently. The hope is that one day, vulnerable groups will not only become critical voters but will also be involved as political actors themselves.
In line with the hopes, aspirations, and enthusiasm of vulnerable groups to take part in political affairs (elections), it would be nice for stakeholders to give a sufficient share to vulnerable groups to gain political knowledge like other citizens. (pojokbebas.com/23 November 2022/urgensi pemberdayaan politik kelompok rentan di sikka)
