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Central Java faces funding problem for regional elections
The Central Java election commission (KPUD) claims to be facing financial problems in a number of regencies in the province for the organization of the simultaneous regional elections slated for December 2015
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he Central Java election commission (KPUD) claims to be facing financial problems in a number of regencies in the province for the organization of the simultaneous regional elections slated for December 2015.
The head of the Central Java KPUD, Joko Purnomo, said that 21 of the province's 35 regencies and cities were to have their respective regional elections in December this year. The combined funds needed for this amount to about Rp 400 billion (US$3.1 million).
'The budget for each regency and city is not the same and depends on the population and the number of voters in the respective regions,' Joko told The Jakarta Post, Sunday.
'Each region on average needs some Rp 20 billion for the election, including the funds needed by the respective elections supervisory committee [Panwaslu], which need some Rp 5 billion each on average,' Joko said.
A lack of election funds, according to Joko, was experienced by at least five regencies: Pemalang, Grobogan, Demak, Sragen and Pekalongan.
The five regencies initially were scheduled to hold their election by mid-2016.
Some of the regencies had not yet even prepared their budgets and were still uncertain about the sources of the needed funds.
In Pekalongan regency,no sources had been identified for the Rp 24 billion budget proposed by the regency's election commission and monitoring committee.
'The regency administration arguing that the 2015 regency budget has been all plotted,' Joko said.
Meanwhile, the Demak regency could only allocate Rp 4 billion of the total Rp 20 billion it needs for the election.
The same financial problems have also been faced by the respective monitoring committees in the five regencies.
'If the KPUD lacks funds, it will also influence the Panwaslu's finances as the budgets for both institutions come side by side,' said the chairman of the Central Java elections supervisory agency's (Bawaslu) monitoring division, Teguh Purnomo.
Teguh said the budget for the monitoring of the December 2015 elections had increased by about Rp 3 billion to Rp 4 billion compared to previous calculations.
'It's because according to the new election law the number of monitoring personnel will increase significantly at all levels, including down in the polling stations,' said Teguh.
