V

oters who anticipated casting ballots in local elections in seven provinces and 181 regencies and municipalities in 2015 will likely have to wait longer before they can exercise their right, at least until 2016 when a system is finally expected to be in place.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) has said that the simultaneous direct elections could be pushed back to 2016, as long as there was an agreement between the government and the House of Representatives.

'€œFor such a postponement, there are needs to be intensive discussion between the Home Ministry and the House,'€ KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik said on Tuesday.

The discussion would be needed to work out some details if the House endorses the government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) on regional elections. Following the endorsement, the ministry could immediately prepare a regulation that would make the schedule change official.

The Home Ministry'€™s director general of regional autonomy, Djohermansyah Djohan, recently said that it was possible for the simultaneous local election to take place in 2016 if the KPU was behind schedule in making preparation for the balloting process.

Under the current arrangement, the simultaneous local elections are scheduled to kick off on Dec. 16, 2015.

However, calls have been mounting for the schedule of the elections to be pushed back to 2016.

'€œHolding the simultaneous elections in December 2015 will be too risky because the time to plan and prepare for the elections is too short, less than one year,'€ Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) executive director Titi Anggraini said on Tuesday.

Ideally, any election organizer should have at least two years to prepare for the balloting, Titi said.

'€œNot to mention that these simultaneous elections will be the first of their kind [in this country]. Compared to legislative elections and presidential elections, regional elections are more likely to create violence and conflicts. That'€™s why the schedule needs to be pushed back at least six month to June 2016,'€ said Titi.

Other than giving the KPU more time to prepare for the balloting, holding the elections in 2016 would create an ideal election cycle, she added.

And as the next presidential election and legislative elections would be also be held simultaneously in 2019, Titi said that the second simultaneous regional elections should be held two years after, in 2021.

'€œTwo years is long enough so that voters would not be too jaded with politics and that would make the turnout higher. It is also enough time for political parties to consolidate themselves so that they can nominate good candidates, as well as for the election organizers to prepare for it,'€ she said.