Election season is upon us again, with an estimated one local election a day, making Indonesia the world’s politically busiest country in the next eight months. We will see a total of 244 local elections, including gubernatorial races in Riau Islands, South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, Jambi, Bengkulu, North Sulawesi and West Sumatra.

Last year the government suspended local elections to elect regional heads whose term in office ended last year, to focus national attention on the April 9, 2009 legislative elections and the July 8 presidential election.
The polls ended with the re-election of incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to another five-year term until 2014.

The local elections on the major islands of Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua involve some 45 million voters, almost 20 percent of the entire population.

However, unresolved complaints from the general election continue to linger, with parties and groups reporting to the General Election Commission (KPU) that 40 million of the 130 million eligible voters were deprived of their voting rights.

A major issue that arises in every election is the perceived competence and transparency of election and census bodies to come up with a credible list of eligible voters free of the thousands of double names, unborn residents and dead citizens as in the case in the 2008 election for Surabaya governor.

Nevertheless, in this democratic fiesta, the elections are a godsend for the unemployed, printing businesses and the media industry.

Many people, including the unemployed, are sent out in campaign activities funded by hopefuls and their supporting political parties while printers and the media receive flyer and banner orders from candidates and their sponsors.

The mood is different for candidates spending huge amounts of campaign funds in an attempt to win.

Long before election day, most hopefuls are busy campaigning, touring, posing for political banners, billboards and media ads and seeking political support for their candidacy.

The government allocated Rp 3.5 trillion to finance the local elections, ranging from the upgrading of voter rolls to campaign management and election day and the inauguration of elected candidates. However, candidates themselves are believed to each spend up to tens of billions to win the elections, depending on the regions’ profile.

According to the Center for Electoral Reforms (Cetro), in the recent local election in Garut, West Java, candidates spent at least Rp 500 million each. During the 2008 gubernatorial candidate, a candidate spent up to Rp 40 billion.

The General Election Commission (KPU) is mainly tasked with making a measurable plan, including election budgets for all elections.

It also play a role as regulator and coordinator to ensure elections are conducted democratically.

In the field, the elections are organized by provincial and regental or municipal polling bodies closely supervised by the Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu) and its provincial and regional branches. The regional polling bodies are responsible for forming election committees at all levels, upgrading voter rolls, screening candidates, counting votes and determining and announcing election winners.

“The KPU and its regional branches will work hard to organize the local elections to seek progressive regional heads and we will upgrade voter rolls to avoid problems resulting from dubious voter rolls as has occurred in the past,” KPU chairman Hafiz Anshary said recently.

He stressed that local elections would be organized according to 2004 Regional Administration Law and 2007 Election Law.

Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi has criticized the recent trend of celebrities running in local elections, saying the trend endangered regional administrations since the candidates had no political experience either in public administration or in political organizations.

Gamawan, a former regent and governor,  said political parties should be selective in nominating celebrities and businesspeople because popularity and money were not adequate qualifications to be regional heads. He likely could not stomach the idea of sexy celebrities running  for regent, and said he wanted the requirements for candidates to be tightened.

Following the success of several celebrities and businesspeople in winning seats in past elections, many celebrities have been courted by smaller parties to run in direct local elections.

Singer-actress Julia Perez has been nominated by the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) to contend the local election in Pacitan, the President’s hometown, while dangdut singer Maria Eva, who was involved in a sex scandal with a Golkar Party politician, is running for the upcoming election in Sidoarjo, East Java. Maya Rumantir, a veteran singer,  said she would contend the gubernatorial election in North Sulawesi.

Political analysts and civil society groups have called on the KPU and the government to work with the Constitutional Court to minimize election conflicts during campaigning and the vote-counting stages.

Researcher Siti Zuhro warns of vote buying which she says “could take various forms”.

Cetro executive director Hadar N. Gumay said that to learn from past elections, the KPU and the government should design a dispute settlement mechanism to avoid problems that could threaten candidates and disrupt the elections.

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