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Jakarta Post

Loss of Reform spirit

Jakartans, for example, will have to allow an unelected governor lead for more than two years, while in Central Java and East Java, the acting governors will serve one year shorter.

Editorial board (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, October 9, 2021

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Loss of Reform spirit Workers from the Depok General Elections Commission (KPU) stack ballot boxes at a warehouse in Cimanggis district, Depok, West Java, on Nov. 25, 2020. JP/P.J.Leo (JP/P.J. Leo)

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ndonesia’s quest for quality democracy is coming under a serious threat not only because the House of Representatives and the government failed this week to set dates for the upcoming national and regional elections in 2024, but also as a result of the government’s intention to appoint senior police and military officers as acting regional heads in place of governors, mayors and regents whose terms end in 2022 and 2023.

Considering the numerous blemishes that tainted the simultaneous legislative and presidential elections in 2019, ranging from voter roll discrepancies to the death of over 600 poll workers allegedly due to exhaustion, preparations matter for the administering of the 2024 polls. The General Elections Commission (KPU) needs at least 20 months to make the historic democratic event a success, but given the massive workload of organizing legislative, presidential and regional elections in one calendar year, the polls body will have to start working as early as possible.

The KPU has proposed a February date for the 2024 national elections, but the government insists on a May date to avoid prolonged political polarization that may undermine government programs.

Exacerbating the debate over the election dates, the government has stirred another controversy after revealing a plan to include police and military officers among high-ranking officials who will fill 271 regional head posts to be left vacant after the House endorsed the government’s move to scrap all regional elections in 2022 and 2023.

The consequences of the elite-centered decision will be overarching. Jakartans, for example, will have to allow an unelected governor lead for more than two years, while in Central Java and East Java, the acting governors will serve one year shorter.

Whoever is appointed acting Jakarta governor will take office on Oct. 16, 2022, the end of Governor Anies Baswedan’s five-year term, until the definite governor who wins the November 2024 election assumes power, perhaps in the first quarter of 2025.

In 271 provinces, mayoralties and regencies, leaders without the people’s mandate will govern for too long and, if the government insists, they may rise from military or police institutions – reminiscent of the New Order era.  

There have been precedents of active military or police officers assigned as acting governors during Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s presidency. Maj. Gen. Soedarmo, in his capacity as director general of political and public governance affairs at the Home Ministry, was named acting governor in Aceh in 2016 and in Papua in 2018. Insp. Gen. Carlo Tewu, then an expert staff member at the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister, was appointed acting West Sulawesi governor in 2017.

The government will try to justify the practice, but clearly, the prevailing 2002 Police Law and the 2004 TNI Law ban active officers from holding political posts, as it will compromise their impartiality. Regional heads, acting or definite, conduct practical politics as they have to deal with political parties.

The two laws were born in the spirit of the 1998 Reform movement, which ended the sociopolitical roles the New Order awarded to the military, which at that time, included the police force. Whether the spirit has lost its relevance, we can only wait and see.

 

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