The Trajectory of Winning Political Parties Since the 2004 General Election: Who is the Strongest?

General elections (pemilu) held from 2004 to 2019 saw three political parties emerge as the biggest winners nationally, based on vote count.

Data from the General Elections Commission (KPU), compiled by the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), shows that Golkar was the winning party in the 2004 election.

This party, symbolized by a banyan tree, received 24.48 million votes, or 21.57% of the 113.49 million valid votes cast for the House of Representatives (DPR).

Golkar secured 127 seats in the DPR, representing 23.09% of the total 550 seats.

The 2004 election was held concurrently with the presidential election (pilpres). This was the first presidential election where the president was directly elected by the people; previously, the president was elected by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

That year's presidential election went to a second round because no candidate in the first round received the minimum required votes—more than 50% of the valid votes.

The second round was won by the pair Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Jusuf Kalla (JK), who received 69.26 million votes, or 60.62% of the 114.25 million valid presidential votes. They were supported by the Demokrat, PBB, and PKPI parties.

Golkar's influence as the winning party in 2004 waned by the 2009 election, which was dominated by the Demokrat party.

(Read also: [This is the Vote Count of the Demokrat Party in the 2004-2019 Elections](https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2022/06/16/ini-perolehan-suara-partai-demokrat-dalam-pemilu-2004-2019))

The party, under President SBY's leadership, garnered 21.65 million votes, or 20.81% of the 104.04 million total votes for the DPR election.

Demokrat obtained 148 DPR seats, or 26.43% of the total 560 seats.

In the 2009 presidential election, SBY and Demokrat's influence remained strong. SBY won the presidency again, with Boediono as his running mate, in a single round. They received 73.87 million votes, or 60.80% of the 121.5 million valid presidential votes.

In 2014, PDI-P reversed the situation, becoming the winning party. This party, symbolized by a banteng (a type of wild cattle), received 23.67 million votes, or 18.96% of the 124.88 million total votes for the DPR election.

PDI-P obtained 109 DPR seats, equivalent to 19.46% of the 560 total seats in the House.

(Read also: [The Largest Vote Bank for PDI Perjuangan in the 2019 Election Was in Central Java](https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2022/10/14/lumbung-suara-terbesar-pdi-perjuangan-pada-pemilu-2019-ada-di-jawa-tengah))

Along with its victory in the DPR election, the presidential candidate supported by PDI-P also won in a single round. The pair Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and JK received 70.99 million votes, or 53.15% of the 133.57 million total presidential votes.

Five years later, PDI-P again emerged as the winning party. The party, under Megawati Soekarnoputri's leadership, received 27.05 million votes, or 19.91% of the valid votes in the 2019 election.

This was the highest number of votes compared to other winning parties since the 2004 election.

PDI-P's seats in the DPR increased to 128, reflecting the increase in the number of seats to 575 in the 2019 election.

Jokowi secured a second term. Along with his running mate, Ma'ruf Amin, the incumbent received 85.6 million votes, or 55.5% of the 154.25 million total presidential votes in the 2019 presidential election.

(Read also: [Assessing the Strength of Islamic Political Parties: Their Vote Trends Since 1999](https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2023/09/15/menakar-kekuatan-partai-politik-islam-ini-tren-suaranya-sejak-1999))