Campaign promises made in recent gubernatorial elections in North Sumatra, West Java, Central Java, East Java and Bali prove that candidates misunderstand the role of governor. Provincial candidates promise to provide free education and health services for children, if they win.

These candidates seem unaware that a governor lacks the authority to provide free education.

A recent proposal by the National Resilience Institute (Lemhanas) -- to the effect that governors should not be elected by the people, but directly appointed by the president -- has caused an outcry in the media.

Those in opposition allege the idea signals the government's intention to recentralize functions that were decentralized in January 2000. Those in support claim the concentration of too many functions in the hands of district or city administrations is to blame for the mismanagement of local governments.

Currently, two contending schools of thought dominate discussion about the role of governor.

The first believes governors should not be directly elected by the people, but appointed by the president.

The second believes the role of governor should be strengthened. The number of cases of bad governance in regencies and cities clearly shows decentralization will not bring much benefit to the people, if district heads or city mayors are given full rein to run their governments as they see fit.

A governor should supervise and monitor the progress of governance at the district and city levels. As districts represent the central government, a governor should also be allowed to provide incentives for districts that perform well and deterrents for those that underperform.

Law No. 32/2004 on regional administration clearly stipulates that a governor has a dual role to play, both as a representative of the central government and as head of a province. The problem with Law No. 32/2004 is that it defines the first role without saying anything about the second.

For a governor to perform his or her task as head of an autonomous province, the province's role in the hierarchy of assignments has first to be delineated. The 2004 law says nothing about such assignments.

Functional assignments are referred to in Government Regulation No. 38/2007, but even here the role of an autonomous province is not clarified: The regulation simply equates the function of central government with that of an autonomous province.

Theoretically speaking, the governor -- in his or her role as a representative of the central government -- is only supposed to carry out what are deemed the central government's "classified exclusive rights" -- rights related to defense, security, the judiciary, religion, finance, and fiscal and foreign affairs.

The central government can ask the governor, as its representative, to carry out tasks related to such rights -- or it can employ its own agencies. Duties unrelated to such rights should not fall under the purview of the central government, but of decentralized local governments.

Even here debate continues. Central government agencies continue to breach the law by carrying out projects in which they have no business being involved. For example, using national funds to rehabilitate crumbling school buildings is a clear violation of the decentralization principle, since schools are the responsibility of local governments.

That the central government continues to use its own agencies to accomplish tasks clearly envisioned for decentralized authority has led some to assume illegal payoffs are at work. In many cases, governors are simply ignored by central government agencies, which appoint their own local government partners to projects.

Conspiracy between the central government and local government officials is the hallmark of current practice. We should not forget that the decentralized budget does not have to be included in the budget report submitted by a governor to the Provincial Legislative Council (DPRD).

For this reason, central government agencies prefer decentralized tasks to "assistance tasks", which require project budgets to be included in the provincial governmental budgets sent to the DPRD.

Members of the expert team revising Law No. 32/2004 have to address the current confusion regarding the governor's dual role.

However, some preliminary steps need to be taken, if this confusion is to be cleared up.

The future direction of government policy with respect to the governor's role -- and that of autonomous provinces -- within the hierarchy of tasks remains unclear. The central government has to decide whether it wants to strengthen the governor's role as its representative, as proposed by Lemhanas. The most challenging issue to consider if it opts to strengthen the governorship is the future role of the DPRD. Will it be dissolved and the governor simply appointed by the president?

If the central government is inclined to strengthen governors' control over autonomous provinces, the task hierarchy for each level of government -- national, provincial and district/city -- has first to be clarified and redefined.

Granting autonomy to districts and cities without empowering governors or provinces will only widen the gap between regencies and between cities. The current legal framework is responsible for the widening gap between resource-rich districts and their resource-poor counterparts.

For example, Kutai Kartanegara in East Kalimantan is prosperous, despite being surrounded by poor districts -- as is Musi Banyuasin in South Sumatra.

It is the governor's role, as a representative of the central government, to narrow the economic gap between districts in his or her province.

*The author is the senior national advisor for German technical cooperation and advisory support services for decentralization (GTZ-ASSD) in the Home Affairs Ministry, Jakarta. This is a personal opinion. The author can be reached at cecep.effendi@gtz.de

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