Periodic Principles in General Elections: Orientation and Implications in Indonesia Muhammad Mutawalli, Zulhilmi Paidi 357 Jurnal Penelitian Hukum De Jure Volume 23, Number 3, September 2023 P-ISSN: 1410-5632, E-ISSN: 2579-8561 Accredited No: 10/E/KPT/2019 This work is published under license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International CC BY-NC 4.0) PERIODIC PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL ELECTIONS: ORIENTATION AND IMPLICATIONS IN INDONESIA Muhammad Mutawalli 1 , Zulhilmi Paidi 2 1 Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Negeri Majene, Sulawesi Barat 2 Universiti Utara Malaysia Corresponding Author. Email: mutawallimuhammad22@gmail.com Submitted: 07-07-2023; Accepted: 26-09-2023 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.30641/dejure.2023.V23.357-374 ABSTRACT The general election is one part of the practice of democracy in Indonesia. In this case, the general election is a manifestation of people’s sovereignty. In general, the principles of elections include the principles of direct, general, free, confdential, honest, and fair. This study seeks to explore the legal construction related to the periodic principle of general elections which must be held periodically every fve years to become a separate principle in elections. The issue of periodization in general elections really needs to be emphasized as one of the principles in general elections as the main basis for creating a cycle of replacement and flling of public positions in the state administration system. This research is a normative legal research with statutory and conceptual approaches. The results of the study confrm that the orientation of legal construction on the periodic principle has actually been expressly stated in the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia and is based on a systematic interpretation. In this case, the orientation of the periodic aspect is part of the general election principle which is obligatory and must be implemented. This implies that the principles of general elections include the principles of direct, general, free, confdential, honest, and fair, and must be held periodically for fve years. In this case, the periodic principle becomes very important to be recognized and explicitly stated in the general election law as a new principle in the technical implementation of general elections. this has implications for the implementation of elections that are inconsistent and tend to change in each implementation. Whereas in holding general elections, the periodic principle will uniformize the holding of elections simultaneously, both national elections and elections at the regional level by setting forth and afrming in the general election law that periodization is a technical principle in holding general elections in Indonesia. Keywords: Democracy, General Election, Periodic Principle. 1. INTRODUCTION General Elections are one of the manifestations of a democracy. True democracy emphasizes the credo that “the people are in power” in a country. 1 The power of the people in a country certainly requires certain parties who are elected to represent the people in running their government. 2 In this case, a democratic country may not demand that the people themselves run their government. 3 The people choose leaders and their representatives to run the wheels of government so that the goals of the country can be fulflled. 4 General 1 Bobi Aswandi and Kholis Roisah, “Negara Hukum Dan Demokrasi Pancasila Dalam Kaitannya Dengan Hak Asasi Manusia (Ham),” Jurnal Pembangunan Hukum Indonesia 1, no. 1 (2019): 128, https://doi.org/10.14710/jphi. v1i1.128-145. 2 Rehia K Isabella Barus et al., “Politics and Political Participation of ‘Grass-Roots’ in General Election 2019, Bandar Selamat Regency, Medan, Indonesia,” Budapest International Research and Critics Institute (BIRCI-Journal): Humanities and Social Sciences 2, no. 1 (2019). 3 Muhammad Mutawalli, Dinamika Partai Politik Indonesia: Problematika Penarikan Dukungan Calon Kepala Daerah (Banyumas: Wawasan Ilmu, 2023). 4 Nazaruddin Lathif, “Teori Hukum Sebagai Sarana Alat Untuk Memperbaharui Atau Merekayasa Masyarakat,” Pakuan Law Review 3, no. 1 (2017).