Progressive Seat Accumulation in Indonesia’s Volatile Multiparty Democracy: Comparing Gerindra and Nasdem

Abstract

This article examines progressive seat accumulation in Indonesia’s volatile multiparty democracy by comparing the legislative trajectories of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and the National Democrat Party (NasDem). The study distinguishes progressive seat accumulation from generic party survival and party institutionalization: it is defined here as a non-declining sequence of DPR seat totals across at least three consecutive legislative elections after a party’s national entry, accompanied by an increase in the party’s share of DPR seats over the observation period. The analysis covers four post-Reformasi legislative elections (2009, 2014, 2019, and 2024), while recognizing that Gerindra and NasDem entered the DPR in 2009 and 2014 respectively. A sequential mixed-method design is used. First, descriptive longitudinal analysis maps party-seat trajectories; second, document-based qualitative process tracing examines organizational leadership, candidate recruitment, electoral positioning, presidential alignment, and resource mobilization. The evidence shows that Gerindra and NasDem satisfy the operational definition of progressive seat accumulation, but through different organizational pathways. Gerindra combines centralized personal leadership with cadre and candidate recruitment around Prabowo Subianto, whereas NasDem combines centralized leadership, open candidate recruitment, and a documented “politics without dowry” strategy with flexible presidential alignment. The article argues that these cases are better understood as forms of hybrid organizational institutionalization rather than evidence that two parties have transformed the Indonesian party system as a whole. The findings refine, rather than refute, scholarship on party institutionalization, presidentialization, catch-all adaptation, and oligarchic resource mobilization.