T

he upcoming simultaneous election for regional heads on Dec. 9 will soon become another male-dominated election in the country, as only a small number of women have received support from political parties to run as candidates in the elections.

Data from the General Elections Commission (KPU) shows that 825 candidate pairs have signed up to participate in the upcoming simultaneous elections, which will be held in nine provinces and 260 regencies and municipalities, by the time it closed the second and final round of candidate registration period on Monday.

The data also shows that only 57 women have signed up as a mayoral, regent or governor candidates, while 61 others registered as deputy mayor, deputy regent, or deputy governor candidates.

In total, only 118, or 7 percent of the total 1,650 aspiring participants for the upcoming local elections are women.

In East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), the planned nine local elections in the province have only attracted the participation of one women candidate, namely Maria Geong who will run for the deputy regent post in West Manggarai regency with regent candidate Agustinus Ch. Dulla.

The pair has been jointly endorsed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the country'€™s largest political party, and the NasDem Party, which made its maiden participation in legislative elections last year.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post on Thursday, NasDem lawmaker Johnny G. Plate said the party had previously tried to endorse several women candidates for several local elections in the province. However, popularity surveys showed that they have a slim chance of winning the elections.

'€œWe once tried to nominate a woman to run in the Ngada regional election. However, after considering the results of a survey on the candidate'€™s electability, we finally decided to replace her with a male candidate,'€ Johnny said.

The final decision to nominate candidates, Johnny added, rested with the members of the coalition of political parties that nominates them. As a relatively small party, NasDem, according to Johnny, will of course endorse popular candidates to increase their chance of winning the elections.

'€œThe challenge for NasDem in nominating women as regional head candidates, in the end, was their relatively low popularity and our limited political threshold [to nominate candidates in a region],'€ he said.

Meanwhile in West Sumatra, Rahmi Brisma, who registered as a deputy mayoral candidate for the Bukittinggi mayoral election, is the only women among 84 participants in the province'€™s upcoming 14 local elections.

Rahmi, a property businesswoman, used to serve as the Bukittinggi Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) councilor for the 1999-2004 and 2004-2009 terms, representing the National Mandate Party (PAN).

In the mayoral election, Rahmi and mayoral candidate Harma Zaldi, however, have been jointly endorsed by the Golkar Party and NasDem. '€œSix weeks before the candidate registration period, PAN'€™s Bukittinggi branch decided to support our nomination, but finally quit at the last minute after the party failed to get a coalition partner to support us. In the end, Golkar and NasDem agreed to back up our nomination,'€ Rahmi told the Post on Friday.

Indonesian Women Coalition (KPI) activist Tanty Herida blamed political parties for their failure in grooming female cadres and for allegedly maintaining the tradition of '€˜political dowries'€™ in election candidate selection.

'€œThis [dowry] practice is indeed difficult to prove but it has been a public secret that political parties nominate figures capable of preparing billions of rupiah as ammunition,'€ she said.