Elite-centered regimes as barriers to meritocracy: the case of Indonesia

Abstract

The spirit of reform carried out with the noble goal of building a meritocratic system, eradicating corruption and nepotism, fighting domination over the elite and building dedication to the realization of good governance is not strong enough to eliminate the power of political dynasties and domination that have long been rooted in Indonesia. This research adopts a critical legal perspective, utilizing an interdisciplinary framework to analyze legal documents, Constitutional Court rulings, and comparative case studies. The findings of the study show that the political party system is still very thick with elitism and nepotism, which leads to political dynasties. Laws and regulations and Constitutional Court Decisions, which were originally expected to prevent conflicts of interest and curb authoritarian currents, have actually become servants of the interests of the elite. Several Constitutional Court Decisions such as age restrictions for Presidential and Vice President candidates as well as Regional Head candidates and the cancellation of the Presidential Treshold were actually made to expand the grip of the oligarchs. Coming from a unique perspective, this study makes it clear that Indonesia has a political system that’s half-and-half, where formal rules exist side by side with entrenched authoritarian practices. This leads to the elite being able to dictate the course of politics in the country and kill off any chance of a brand-new, more meritocratic system. The weak laws governing political parties and campaign donations in Indonesia make this problem even more severe. The researchers strongly recommend sweeping reforms to the legal and political systems in Indonesia. Ones that would require more realistic and enforceable regulations to combat conflicts of interest, full transparency in the funding of political parties and regular internal elections within these parties.

Introduction

The democratic reforms that followed Indonesia’s political transition in 1998 were expected to strengthen the meritocracy through institutional innovations such as direct elections, party reform, and the establishment of the Constitutional Court (MK) (Baidhowa, 2021). These measures are designed to ensure fairer recruitment to public office, reduce conflicts of interest, and curb the influence of oligarchic networks. Yet, more than two decades later, Indonesia’s democratic trajectory remains undermined by elite-centered regimes, dynastic politics, and deep-rooted patronage structures (Mirayanti et al., 2025; Turner et al., 2019).

Indonesia has gone through various periods of democracy and has progressively also gone through a series of reforms resulting in a multiparty electoral system. However, it has not been able to eliminate autocratic practices. Existing power structures often favor established political elites, political recruitment often reflects family ties and financial power, thus magnifying inequalities in political competition and reducing opportunities for non-elite actors to compete and participate fairly and ignore professional competence and achievement (Power and Warburton, 2020; Warburton, 2024).

This research shows that the existing legal framework often legitimizes private interests and oligarchs, thus exacerbating the problems of nepotism and cartelization (Babajan, 2018; Dona, 2022; Negara and Hutchinson, 2021; Power, 2018; Slater, 2018). Although there is a lot of literature that highlights the persistence of oligarchy dominance, clientelism, and party cartelization in Indonesia (Arifin, 2025; Maharani et al., 2024; Mietzner, 2013a; Parandaru, 2023; Winters, 2011, 2014). Elite dominance and party cartelization in Indonesia have also been observed by Winters (2014) and Levitsky and Way (2010), however, the current literature does not pay much attention to the legal-institutional paradox; how the legal framework and the Constitutional Court (MK), ostensibly intended to preserve democratic justice, in practice legitimize the political reproduction of dynasties and undermine meritocratic competition, for example, Law No. 30/2014 on State Administration officially defines conflicts of interest but does not have a proper enforcement mechanism. Effective (Minister of Law and Human Rights, 2014, Articles 42–43). Similarly, Law No. 7/2017 on Elections which requires the disclosure of campaign funds, but weak oversight allows informal funding networks to flourish (Minister of State Secretariat, 1999, Pasal 325–331).

The latest Constitutional Court decisions, such as the Constitutional Court Decision No. 90/PUU-XXI/2023 concerning the minimum age requirements for presidential and vice presidential candidates, and the Constitutional Court Decision No. 70/PUU-XXII/2024 concerning the Minimum Reduction of the Age Limit for Regional Head Candidates, which show constitutional elasticity for the sake of the elite and the strengthening of dynastic politics. In addition, there is also Constitutional Court Decision No. 62/PUU-XXII/2024 concerning the Presidential Threshold, which removes the provisions on the threshold for presidential candidacy. But instead of encouraging democracy and enforcing meritocracy, the presence of this ruling further strengthens the dominance of the elite and nourishes political dynasties (Mutawalli Mukhlis et al., 2024). Legal factors and institutional systems actually contribute to the sustainability of the elite domination regime in Indonesia.

Thus, the research question that will be explored is born, namely how does the interaction between legal norms and political practices in Indonesia strengthen elite power, dynastic politics, and patronage, and on the other hand weaken the principle of meritocracy in the Indonesian government system? Therefore, this study fills the gap in the existing literature through an analysis of the relationship between legal norms and political practices toward meritocracy, by understanding how legal frameworks, including the Constitutional Court Decision, allow the emergence of political practices that benefit the elite and actually hinder efforts aimed at strengthening meritocracy.

This research aims to enrich understanding of the dynamics between democracy and autocracy by highlighting how the legal system in Indonesia, through policies and Constitutional Court rulings, strengthens elite control over the political process. This also hinders meritocracy, which should be the basis for the recruitment of public officials. In addition, this research also contributes to policy discourse by comparing political finance regulations in Indonesia with a stricter system in Australia. We propose a roadmap for reform that emphasizes the importance of real-time transparency, sustainable donation restrictions, and conditional public funding, which are expected to promote democracy within parties in Indonesia.

By filling the existing literature gap on the influence of law and institutions in maintaining the persistence of elite domination, through this study a new perspective is offered on how institutional elements in the legal and political order can affect elite hegemony. So that through this research, recommendations can be given for policy makers to realize more egalitarian and transparent governance, as well as offer new ideas about Indonesian democracy which is in the consolidation phase (Mietzner, 2015; Winters, 2021).

Conceptual framework of research

Aiming to analyze the dynamics of the political system after the Indonesian autocracy, the research will concentrate on how hybrid state structures can sustain the persistence of elite dominance. The study develops a conceptual framework that blends key theoretical models such as hybrid regimes, meritocratic erosion, elite-centered political parties, and party cartelization, to offer a coherent analysis of the challenges facing Indonesian democracy in shaping Indonesia’s post-reform political system.

Indonesia’s democratic life after the reform cannot be separated from the authoritarian practices and discretion of the elite, where the two run in harmony with the principles of democracy. This condition creates a “gray zone” that shows the characteristics of a hybrid political system. Elite control of political institutions and mechanisms results in low transparency and accountability in government. This resulted in the continued development of the oligarchy, strengthening the political dominance of a few groups and hindering the consolidation of authentic democracy (Levitzky and Way, 2010).

The elites now tend to group and jointly protect their interests by using the shield of political parties; converting political parties as legal instruments to centrally gather the power of elite resources. This is called the phenomenon of political party cartelization. This shift is slowly eroding party ideology, replacing it with group-based politics of interests or patronage. Meritocracy and ideological rules are no longer considerations in the mechanisms of recruitment and political participation, but are centered on party funding and power-sharing. Supervision is centralized in the hands of the elite, thus further nourishing nepotism, blunting idealism, and on the one hand giving rise to internal systemic conflicts of interest.

As a result of political dynasties, nepotism and weak supervisory functions triggered the erosion of meritocracy in government institutions. The appointment of public officials tends to be done through the appointment of individuals with family connections and interest groups, not based on competency considerations. This will have an impact on public decision-making, the quality of governance and the effectiveness of the policies that are proposed (Winters, 2021). The erosion of meritocracy reflects the increasing power of the elite in Indonesian politics, where governance is increasingly driven by patronage and family ties, rather than competence and accountability. The causal relationship between hybrid states, party cartelization, and the erosion of meritocracy in public policy is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Furthermore, to understand the conceptual framework of the research, refer to Table 1. The relationship between the three theories above can provide a complete picture of the political dynamics of Indonesia after the authoritarian period. The hybrid/two-state regime provides an idea of how Indonesia operates with two faces—normatively valid as a democratic state, but in practice remains in the grip of entrenched elite power. The cartelization of political parties explains how party ideology is obscured, and political parties are used by a handful of elites to maintain their power, instead of becoming instruments of democracy for the people. Meanwhile, the erosion of meritocracy is the end result of a hybrid regime and political party cartelization that gave birth to a system of appointing public officials no longer based on meritocracy and competence, but based on power connections and nepotism in order to perpetuate elite power. The trajectory of hybrid regimes is interdependent with the autocracy of the political elite (usually through the incumbent and dynastic politics) with ownership of the party structure and the squeezing of party funding creating a new coercive system for the benefit of the elite. Together, these typologies illustrate the progression from elite dominance to pragmatic vote-seeking behaviors that undermine ideological differentiation and public accountability.

Using this theoretical framework, this study wants to show how elite power can continue to survive even after Indonesia has gone through a period of reform. He slowly continues to erode the value of democracy through the creation of public policies that are not inclined to the interests of the people, incompetent officials, and political bias because they always focus on the interests of the elite. In addition, weak supervision of political parties, especially in the funding system, further worsens the inequality of Indonesia’s political and democratic system.

Method

This study uses the Critical Legal Studies (CLS) approach, a legal thought that developed in the United States, which instead of considering the law to be neutral and objective, but rather exposes the ambiguity of the law, as a tool that often favors and maintains the status quo and social bias, with the aim of reconstructing the law in favor of marginalized groups.

Combining the construction of law, political science and public administration, thus forming an interdisciplinary analytical framework. Through the CLS approach, it can be seen how the rule of law, instead of acting as a driver of meritocracy and limiting conflicts of interest, is instead used as a justification for elite interests and creates social disparities (Banakar and Travers, 1997). This framework opens up the horizon of thinking about how the post-political system intertwined with legal institutions affects governance and democratic processes through the reading of the structure of legal and institutional texts associated with the post-reform socio-political context.

Legal document selection and case study review

The primary data source was selected by the purposive sampling method, in the form of legal documents that include laws and Constitutional Court Decisions. Meanwhile, secondary data sources include academic literature, government policy reports and official institutional publications. These secondary sources help triangulate and verify the interpretation of primary legal documents.

The selected documents, which include Laws and Constitutional Court Decisions and their respective implications for meritocracy and conflicts of interest, are described in Table 2.

Comparative analysis between countries

Incorporates comparative legal analysis on the countries of Thailand, Australia and Italy to expand the scope of the analysis. The main indicators of comparison are transparency, political accountability and the financial arrangement of the party, including how the management of conflicts of interest, internal democracy of the party and its law enforcement are regulated within political parties. This is intended to examine the structural and procedural differences between the political parties of these countries and Indonesia. Indonesia can adopt how the mechanisms of their legal system and political structure can be applied to strengthen meritocratic governance.

Data validity, reliability, bias management and research limitations

Triangulation is carried out with the aim of ensuring the validity of data, through cross-referencing of primary legal documents with secondary data in the form of academic references and institutional reports. Consistent coding categorization is carried out in these data sources, so that it can identify patterns, facilitate analysis, find meaning and ensure the objectivity of the research.

The technique of coding data and research documentation that is carried out transparently and consistently is carried out as bias management. Overcoming the limitations of data accessibility is carried out by a combination of interdisciplinary and comparative data sources, so as to enrich the depth of data interpretation and analysis. Although the study used publicly available legal documents, the study acknowledges that informal networks and political dynamics not covered in the documents can influence the results of the study.

In addition, this comparative analysis has some limitations, as the political system in other countries may be different so that it affects the application of the findings in Indonesia. However, this challenge is overcome by integrating diverse sources, resulting in a comprehensive and thorough analysis.

Results

This section presents empirical findings from the analysis of legal documents, Constitutional Court Decisions, and case study sketches, which are then comparatively combined with several other countries The results of the research are arranged in several thematic categories in the form of normative gaps and weaknesses of the legal framework related to conflicts of interest and meritocracy; political parties centered on elites and political vulnerabilities; the role of the Constitutional Court’s decision in opening up space for dynastic politics; and comparative lessons from other countries.

The legal framework and Constitutional Court decisions: conflicts of interest, weakening meritocracy and elite-centered politics

Since 1998, post-authoritarian Indonesia has formally moved toward strengthening meritocracy and organizing conflicts of interest as the creation of “equality of opportunity” for citizens. However, an analysis of Law No. 30 of 2014 concerning Government Administration shows that the regulation of conflicts of interest still stops at the level of definition. Articles 42–43 do define conflict of interest as a situation when officials have personal interests that can affect the neutrality and quality of decisions, and mention elements of personal, business, and family relations (Minister of Law and Human Rights, 2014). However, this law does not describe concrete forms of conflict of interest, does not regulate reporting and handling procedures, and does not contain strict sanctions. In practice, the absence of this enforcement design makes the implementation of conflict-free governance highly dependent on the individual ethics of officials, not on systematic institutional mechanisms.

The constitution and derivative regulations have also not fully complied with Indonesia’s commitments after ratifying the 2003 UNCAC, which encourages the comprehensive regulation of conflicts of interest (United Nation, 2004). Corruption is strictly prohibited, but the resolution of conflicts of interest outside the context of procurement of goods/services is still partially implemented in procurement (Minister of State Secretariat, 1999). Empirically, this creates a normative picture, where Indonesia formally recognizes the importance of integrity, but materially does not provide an operational framework capable of preventing and dealing with conflicts of interest.

A similar situation can be seen in the arrangement of political parties (Minister of Law and Human Rights, 2008, 2011). The 1945 Constitution gives constitutional rights to parties as election participants and proposers of the President-Vice President pair, but does not stipulate constitutional obligations regarding internal democracy, financial transparency, or recruitment standards based on meritocracy. The 2008 Political Parties Law and its 2011 amendments regulate the function of the party as a vehicle for political participation and citizen education (Minister of Law and Human Rights, 2008, 2011), but it does not explicitly answer whether the party is a public entity with special accountability obligations or a private entity with an affirmed public responsibility. This ambiguity of status has implications for weak supervision arrangements, management of party funds, and financial audits. The absence of special norms about conflicts of interest within the party makes the party dependent on the foundation of influential figures, so that the party can easily turn into a “political vehicle” belonging to a few elites (Lin, 2004; Piketty, 2020).

Normatively, the law opens up space for the formation of party wings and structures that should be channels for grassroots participation as well as a vehicle for internal democracy (Khaitan, 2020; Porto, 1991). However, the findings of the study show that the role of this organizational wing tends to be symbolic. The recruitment mechanism for prospective members of the DPR/DPRD is carried out through a closed “internal selection” and is highly determined by the party elite. As a result, competency-based regeneration and grassroots participation have become weak, while capital-driven “top-down” politics have strengthened (Arianto, 2019). In this context, parties fail to function as horizontal checks and balances mechanisms, and the opposition is more often co-opted than positioned as a government counterweight (Katz and Crotty, 2006; Streeck, 2011).

The political financial aspect is increasingly dominant when analyzing the 2017 Election Law, especially the provisions on campaign financing (Articles 325–331). The law formally regulates campaign fund reporting obligations and disclosing sources of funds, but field findings show that reporting is often late and does not fully reflect actual fund flows. In modern democratic systems, the need for political funds is inevitable, but without strong regulation, money can be a source of legal and integrity problems, including corruption and undue influence (Browne, 2023; Ng, 2021).

A comparative review of the political finance literature places Indonesia between two ideal models of party organization as a public entity, namely the full public funding model; and the model of combining public funds and donations with strict conditions (Balashova and Sydoruk, 2018; Marriott and Rashbrooke, 2023). A full public funding model has the potential to prevent party dependence on private donors and reduce “political debt” to funders (Hopkin, 2004). The state also gains full access to audit the use of party funds. However, if supervision is weak, state subsidies can encourage party cartelization and reduce the party’s incentives to be critical of the government (Linz, 2000; Slater, 2018). Indonesia is still in a position between state aid, but without clear indicators of effectiveness and without strong evaluation and sanctions mechanisms (Faisal Barid and Mulyanto, 2018). This makes the reform of the party’s funding law has not resulted in substantive changes to the practice of oligarchs that rely on informal funding.

Constitutional Court (MK) decision and the expansion of dynastic political space

An analysis of several Constitutional Court (MK) rulings shows a consistent pattern: normatively, they are framed as protecting the constitutional rights of citizens, but in the context of elite-centered institutions and parties, they tend to expand the space for dynastic politics and reduce the chances of meritocratic competition.

The history of changes in the age threshold in local government regulations—starting from the tiered arrangements in the New Order era, the post-revision of the 1999 Regional Autonomy Law, to the recentralization of 2004 and changes during the time of Presidents Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Joko Widodo—shows that the age limit was always negotiated in the context of central-regional relations and political interests at that time (Minister of Law and Human Rights, 2014, 2015; Minister of State Secretary, 1974; Minister of State Secretary of State, 1999; Secretary of State, 2004). The study’s findings do not conclude that any age change “causes” dynasties, but that in elitist party configurations, easing of the age threshold tends to be exploited by the families of incumbent officials to expand their political presence at various levels.

From various existing case studies, the researcher made a Table of Directed Evidence (Case Sketch) as shown in Table 3.

Table shows the interesting fact that the combination of legal design, weak oversight and elite-centered party structure will result in the same and repeated pattern, namely family connections and proximity to access to capital giving a candidate a pre-village and a great advantage, compared to relying solely on professional competence or other prestigious track records. Every stage in the candidate nomination process—from internal party selection, including administrative requirements, campaign funding, to oversight and sanctions—contains risk points that have the potential to erode the principles of meritocracy and strengthen elite dominance.

Figure 2 (Candidate Candidacy Risk Map) represents this risk map schematically and forms the basis for further analysis in the Discussion section on its impact on the quality of bureaucracy and public policy outcomes.

Figure 2

Comparative lessons from other countries

To assess whether the patterns found in Indonesia are unique or part of a broader trend, the study compared them with several international cases. In Italy, for example, Forza Italia founded by Silvio Berlusconi has been widely described as a personal “political vehicle,” with a strong reliance on the leader’s capital and business network (Baldini and Ventura, 2024; Hopkin and Paolucci, 1999). In Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra revived political parties through a large supply of capital, transforming the party into a business-oriented party with managed populism and strong patronage (Nelson, 2006). These two examples show that in the context of a pragmatic political culture, elite-focused parties tend to shift into “capital-intensive” parties that blend business and political interests (Hopkin and Paolucci, 1999; Raniolo, 2006).

Overall, the comparative policies between Indonesia and Australia are presented in Table 4.

Comparative lessons can be drawn from Australia that strict regulation of donation limits, real-time transparency, independent audits and effective sanctions can significantly limit the influence of money and curb the space for elite dominance in the party. With it, we can propose a roadmap for political party reform in the Discussion section to strengthen meritotics in the appointment of public officials to improve democratic governance in Indonesia.

Discussion

The paradox in legal reform is raised in this study. Laws and regulations, which are actually designed to glorify meritocracy, are rarely used as a tool to facilitate and reproduce the interests of the elite. The logic of the hybrid state reflects these two opposites, namely legal-democratic life side by side with the dominance of the informal elite.

Hybrid/dual state dynamics and post-reform Indonesian politics

Indonesia’s post-reform political system reflects a hybrid regime—a mixture of democracy, authoritarianism, and legalism that allows for the dominance of the political elite even though it is nominally democratic. This hybrid or dual-state framework is often described as “competitive authoritarianism” (Levitsky and Way, 2002, 2010) where formal democratic institutions, such as elections and political parties, coexist with entrenched informal power structures that limit political competition and undermine meritocracy. The journey to post-reform democracy was hampered by the power of authoritarian chains and dynastic politics (Corrales, 2015).

The main essence of hybrid rezim in Indonesia is that the country has a binary system within one country; the state of law on the one hand symbolizes obedience to the law toward a democratic state. On the other side is the face of the prerogative state that serves elite power that spreads into the core of state power—dominating and then degrading the rule of law that has been created (Daly, 2019; Linz, 2000). The post-reform constitutional framework is not adequate in the process of consolidating democracy; the rule of law is still symbolic. In practice, Indonesia’s legal system and political system are still more inclined to serve the interests of elite groups, allow autocracies to lead and control the state, weaken the system of checks and balances in an effort to strengthen the octopus of elite power (Scheppele, 2018).

Party cartelization challenges democracy and meritocracy in Indonesia

The next challenge that should be considered for the development of democracy and meritocracy in Indonesia is the cartelization of political parties. Political parties, which actually play a role as a vehicle for articulating and aggregating the interests of the people, have instead changed their form into a tool of elite control, protecting the interests of accumulating power resources, instead of prioritizing the people’s will and maintaining democratic stability (Warburton, 2024). Law No. 2 of 2008 on Political Parties and its amendments have failed to establish clear standards for democracy and internal party accountability, making political parties increasingly elitist and disconnected from the public (Mietzner, 2015). Ketentuan normatif tentang Partai Politik dalam UU No, 2 Tahun 2008 dan aturan perubahannya gagal menetapkan standar yang tegas untuk akuntabiitas internal partai, mengakibatkan Parties in Indonesia are characterized as “all-catch parties,” with an ideological basis that is vague because it places too much emphasis on electoral pragmatism (Mietzner, 2013b; Power and Warburton, 2020). This dynamic undermines meritocracy by shifting the focus of political parties from selecting competent candidates based on competency qualifications to those with elite connections, wealth, and patronage networks. The deficit of internal democracy within the party body means that candidates are often chosen on the basis of personal connections rather than merit and competence, which strengthens the power of the established elite and inhibits the emergence of competent new leaders (Smith, 2009; Warburton, 2024).

Although the 2017 Election Act has introduced campaign funding transparency mechanisms, the lack of direct disclosure and weak enforcement of financial reporting exacerbate the influence of money and cartelization in politics. Although there is an Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) tasked with overseeing campaign funds, the scope is still very limited, they are not authorized to track informal donations that allow elites to maintain financial dominance over the electoral process (Aman and Tomsa, 2023). This situation creates a feedback loop in which elite-controlled parties use their financial advantages to dominate the political landscape, further strengthening Indonesia’s political oligarchy structure (Bachmid and Rachmitasari, 2022). Without significant reforms in political party funding, the recruitment of meritocratic political leaders remains an elusive goal.

Erosion of meritocracy by oligarchy

The erosion of meritocracy in Indonesia is largely driven by the concentration of power in family politics and elite networks. This concentration is often manifested in dynastic politics, where political power is inherited within elite families or groups, overriding meritocracy-based recruitment and preserving a culture of patronage (Feinstein, 2010). The lack of clear regulation of conflicts of interest in the political system further exacerbates this problem, as elected officials often exploit their positions for personal gain or keluarga (Donald, 2011).

The Constitutional Court’s decisions in cases such as Gibran Rakabuming Raka and Kaesang Pangarep (President Joko Widodo’s son) show how legal rulings indirectly perpetuate dynastic politics by lowering the age limit for candidates (Flassy et al., 2025; Sari et al., 2025). This ruling, although framed as an expansion of political participation, primarily benefits political elites and their families, which further limits opportunities for non-elite candidates and reduces competition. The rise of political dynasties weakened the principles of equality of opportunity and meritocratic governance, since power was centralized in several families, perpetuating a system that prioritized connections over competence. In this context, meritocracy becomes a formal ideal rather than a practical reality, with access to power increasingly dependent on family ties and wealth rather than individual competence and public service records (Levitzky and Way, 2010).

Comparative study and policy recommendations

Comparative reviews with other countries, such as Australia, Italy and Thailand, are believed to provide enlightenment for reform of political party financial management in maintaining democratic values. The Australian government implements effective measures in the regulation of political donations, including real-time disclosure and cap on nominal donations accompanied by budget transparency and a strict accountability system so as to effectively reduce the influence of money politics within political parties (Nwokora et al., 2019; Tham, 2010). Enforcement of provisions on restrictions and strict audits of donations in Australia ultimately creates a fairer, more accountable and more transparent political system (Ng, 2021).

Legal and bureaucratic reforms in Indonesia have not been adequate to support the same as those implemented in Australia. Political parties can act secretly in their financial affairs. Transparency and accountability in internal party funding or election campaign funding are not enforced, as a result of which oligarchy is increasingly corrupting the party. The party’s ideology is no longer the commander-in-chief, but rather the most royal donor will become the new mecca of the party. Formal regulations were not created to prevent this from happening (Esavwede et al., 2025).

These reforms aim to reduce the influence of money in politics, curb the power of political dynasties, and strengthen the principle of meritocracy in political recruitment, ultimately creating a more competitive and fair political environment in Indonesia.

Conclusion

The study critically examines post-1998 legal reform in Indonesia, revealing that formal regulation has proven ineffective enough to stem the tide of elite dominance and political dynasties. As a result, the progress of meritocracy has stagnated. Despite efforts to implement democratic processes, the enduring power of an elite-driven political system, coupled with weak law enforcement, hinders genuine political competition and sustains a system where merit-based recruitment remains limited. This hybrid system, creating an increasingly powerful system of dynastic politics and patronage, as it allows formal democracy to coexist with the control of the informal elite.

This study makes a theoretical contribution by combining hybrid regime theory and competitive authoritarianism to analyze post-reform Indonesia, focusing on the dynamics between legal and political systems that facilitate elite continuity within a democracy. It emphasizes the gap between formal legal structures and actual practices, which ultimately reinforce oligarchic rule. The analysis of political party cartelization reveals that in Indonesia, political parties serve more as instruments for elite control than as genuine representatives of democracy. Furthermore, the absence of political finance regulations and weak law enforcement deepen inequality and undermine democratic processes. These findings not only improve our understanding of the complexities of hybrid regimes, but also provide practical recommendations for political and legal reforms that can foster a more democratic and meritocratic system of government. This research will contribute to increasing the understanding of hybrid regimes in Indonesia, as well as produce practical recommendations for legal and political reforms in advancing the meritocratic system of government for better democracy.

Implications and recommendations

The study’s results show that structural changes are necessary to deal with the ongoing problems of elite dominance and political dynasties in Indonesia. To make politics fairer, we need to focus on making things more open, making political party funding more accountable, and using a merit-based system to hire people. The study specifically advocates for the following policy reforms:

Short-term: Implement direct disclosure of campaign donations, establish an independent audit body, and implement strict sanctions for violations to improve the transparency of political funding.

Medium Term: Introduce sector-based donation restrictions to limit the risk of corruption, set nominal limits on political donations, and ensure greater transparency in the management of internal party funds.

Long-Term: Provide conditional public funding to parties that meet the criteria of transparency and meritocracy, promote intra-party democracy by establishing competency-based candidate selection, and reform the campaign funding system to ensure fairer political competition.

Limitation and future research

The study’s use of qualitative document analysis makes it harder to apply the results to other situations. Interviews with political elites, surveys of legislative procedures, or network analysis could all be used in future research to confirm the causal mechanisms that were found. Also, future studies could look into how certain reforms at the subnational level affect the larger political scene or compare them to those in other countries that are going through similar problems with democratization and political party reform.

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