It all happens because of money politics at the highest level of the elite, that is, the 20-percent presidential threshold. Political parties are forced to form coalitions to meet the 20 percent of required votes. Leaders from medium-size parties must bury their hopes and rights to become presidential candidates.
The party’s general chairman is compelled to relinquish his right to be a presidential candidate because of the 20 percent threshold system. He is forced to agree to the presidential candidate chosen by the affluent. This system has been carefully maintained to result in two presidential candidates, both of whom are determined by the super-rich. In the end, the party leaders will receive a very large “dowry” from these elite rich.
If you can be rich, why should you be a presidential candidate? Maybe that is the reasoning the political parties have now. Then, what is the point of having political parties if they only produce general chairmen acting like political merchants? Just dissolve the political parties and set up a trading firm to trade the people’s votes as an endowment for the rich. This country only belongs to the rich! Probably that is what the fools think.
In fact, there is a solution – a way to eradicate money politics at the elite level, by eliminating the presidential threshold. If the presidential threshold is set to zero percent, each party can nominate its presidential candidate. With a maximum of a dozen candidates (according to the number of political parties that passed the election requirements) participating in the first round, only two candidates remain for the second round. We should try to learn from the 48 countries that have eliminated the presidential election threshold.
If the presidential election threshold is removed, the party chairmen will actually become statesmen. They will learn the art of delivering appealing speeches and promising a state system in line with their party’s ideology and vision, because they have to join in every presidential debate, instead of always being “cheerleaders” in every debate, as in the previous system. In the new system, general chairmen, who have political merchants’ mentality instead of a presidential candidate mentality, will be naturally eliminated. Gradually, money politics among the elites will fall apart and disappear.
If elite-level money politics disappears, community-level money politics will also disappear, because it is common sense that people follow the elites. If the greedy political elites trade people’s votes with the rich people’s money, then the people would like to taste the money, no matter how pitifully little it might be. (Gede Sandra)