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ogiyai regency is slated to have every resident vote for his or her preferred regional head next month, leaving behind the traditional noken system in which tribal leaders act as proxies to deliver the consensus of the tribe, which is determined by members depositing non-secret ballots into a woven bag.

In a move that has broken with tradition in the region, the local election committee (KPUD Dogiyai) announced that the regency, just like in the previous election, would be the only one of the six in Papua province involved in the upcoming elections on Feb. 15 that would apply the regular secret ballot voting system.

Papua, which consists of the two provinces of Papua and West Papua, is the only region in the country that has been allowed to use the noken, a system that has been widely criticized for hampering direct elections.

A noken is a traditional bag commonly used by residents of Papua. In the voting system which is usually applied in the region’s mountainous areas, citizens usually put their votes in one and let their leaders go to the polling stations to vote for them. The choices the leaders make should follow what has been decided by the residents.

Earlier, the provincial election committee announced that all six regencies, including Dogiyai, would use the noken.

“Dogiyai will exercise the ‘one man one vote’ system as applied in other provinces nationwide. We will not use the noken system, to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to vote,” KPUD Dogiyai chairman Mathias Bu’tu said.

The regency has never used the noken system in previous elections, including in the 2014 general elections, unlike other regencies in the region that either use the noken in the place of a ballot box, or as a proxy system in which a tribal group is only represented by its leader who votes for everyone. “We have never used the noken system here. It was only applied to serve certain political interests,” he said.

Yan Mandenas, a politician of the Hanura Party, said that the noken system denied the right of citizens to vote based on their own consciences.

“This system should be abolished. The system ignores someone’s right to vote because his or her right has been taken away by the ‘big man’ or by someone who represents them,” he said, adding that the noken system should be eliminated in other areas in Papua.

The Dogiyai election commission is currently printing the ballots for the election. As many as 122,128 voters are expected to participate at 190 polling stations in 79 villages in 10 districts.

Previously, there were six pairs of candidates running in the election, but two of them were eliminated because the number of supporters gathered by their affiliated political parties did not fulfill the minimum requirement.

The Dogiyai election will see four candidates vying for the position of regent. The four pairs are Fransiscus Tebay and Benediktus Kotouki (independent candidates), Markus Wayne and Antian Goo (nominated by Hanura), Yakobus Dumapa and Oskar Makay (nominated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the Gerindra Party and the Nation’s Awakening Party or PKB), and Anton Yowau and Yanwarius Tigi (nominated by the Prosperous and Justice Party or PKS).

The Papuan regencies will be among 101 regions that will participate in the concurrent elections in February. As a restive region, election results are often unpredictable.

Political parties have struggled to maintain local support.

In the first concurrent local elections in 2015, the results were surprising, as out of nine incumbents, only two were re-elected, namely Nabire Regent Isaias Douw and Yalimo Regent Er Dabi, while the rest were crushed by their rivals.

Next month, 11 incumbents in regencies and cities in Papua and West Papua will vie for re-election, but their chances may be slim because of the local dynamics in the country’s easternmost region.