Editorial: The regional champions

The Home Ministry’s latest survey of regional autonomy in 33 provinces, 398 regencies and 93 cities throughout the country cited North Sulawesi as the top performer measured by key indicators of good governance, public welfare, public service and economic competitiveness. South Sulawesi was ranked the second-best and Central Java the third.

The results of the survey rank Pacitan on top of the 10 best performing regencies and Surakarta in Central Java as the best performing city. The findings of the survey were very much similar to the results of the local economic governance survey conducted by the Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD) in cooperation with the Asia Foundation.

The launch of the regional autonomy in 2001 has indeed moved local governments to the front line in facing economic development challenges in Indonesia and the quality of regency and city governments, where the local autonomy is centered, therefore matters greatly. Advancing further governance reforms is key to achieving economic success and the country needs champions forging ahead with such reforms so that we can all learn from their experiences.

Regional leaders have increasingly realized the importance of good governance in bolstering investment and trade, which are vital for regional economies because it is private investment, not the public administration, that generates jobs. It is jobs that generate wages and it is wages that generate purchasing power for the people to buy goods and services – thus propelling the wheels of the economy.

In several regencies and cities, where regional autonomy is anchored, regents and mayors, who were reelected with more than 80 percent of the votes, shared the same hallmarks: Strong leadership with honesty, good governance and good communication with the people through a participatory process in planning and implementing development programs.

Even though the number of such reform-minded leaders is still rather negligible compared to the 491 regency and municipal administrations throughout the country, they could serve as the catalysts and their successes could stimulate a higher pace of reform in other regions.

We fully support Vice President Boediono’s suggestion that the best performing provincial, regency and municipal administrations, besides being honored with awards, also be given fiscal incentives to encourage more regional administrations to improve their governance. The decentralization process is not just about regional government budgets. It is the prosperity of the local people that should be the main goal of local economic development. The monitoring of local government performance, both executives and legislature, should focus on the ability of regional governments to revitalize local economy through jobs creation.

Yet more important is that as the popularity of regional government leaders increases their political communications with the local legislative councils also become more effective, thereby enabling them to arrange budget appropriations for the programs decided through the participatory process.

Only strong and effective leaders can prevent such inordinately hostile relationships between the executive and legislative branches of the government as those between the central government and the House of Representatives.