Two Decades of Women's Affirmative Action in Indonesia: Some Reflections and Recommendations

Democracy essentially requires equal rights between men and women. Both men and women should have equal opportunity to participate in public affairs such as politics. However, women’s political participation remains low compared to men. Women face many obstacles in expressing their political views, particularly in electoral politics. To address the issue, the government has adopted affirmative action by setting a gender quota to enhance women’s political representation. However, the quota does not automatically increase women’s electability parliament. Indonesia is an example of this case. Women’s political representation has never exceeded 30% since the introduction of direct elections. We used a qualitative method for this study. We found that four reasons cause the issue – women’s socio-political capital, the weakness of party institutionalization, the strict political competition among candidates, and voters’ pragmatic behavior during elections. We concluded that there should be severe attempts from various parties – government, political party, and civil society – to increase women’s political representation. Our study matters for mainstreaming gender equality and pushing democracy more substantively. Keywords: affirmative policy, Indonesia, women’s political representation.