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Blitar politician cements grip as wives reelected as village heads
Blitar regency politics have become a family affair as father serves as deputy regent, son sits on council and father's two wives just got reelected as village heads
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span>Blitar regency politics have become a family affair as father serves as deputy regent, son sits on council and father's two wives just got reelected as village heads.
Deputy Blitar regent Marhaenis Urip Widodo, 53, has built his political career in his native Blitar regency in East Java since he was elected as a councillor in 2004. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician won two other local legislative elections, in 2009 and 2014, before running as a deputy regent candidate in 2015 alongside Rijanto.
He is not the only one from his immediate family who has ventured into politics. His two wives, Halla Unariyanti, 48, and Fendriana Anitasari, 33, have each just been reelected to a second term in the simultaneous elections for the heads of neighboring villages held on Tuesday.
In the elections held in 167 villages across the regency, Halla won more than 65 percent of the votes in Bendosewu village, Talun district, while Marhaenis' second wife Fendriana gained a staggering 80 percent of votes in Wonorejo village in the same district.
Moreover, his oldest son Nasa Barcelona, 26, won a seat on the Blitar Regency Council after securing 22,000 votes in the 2019 General Elections, making him the legislative candidate at the regency level with the highest number of votes across the country. All members of the family have been endorsed by the PDI-P, currently the ruling party at the national level.
“I and Mbak Uun [Halla] helped each other in this election. Our husband has been very supportive throughout the campaign for our reelections. It was easy for us to maintain communications as I only need two minutes to go home in Bendosewu village [where Halla lives],” Fendriana said on Monday.
On voting day, Marhaenis, sporting a black T-shirt and a brown pair of jeans, went to a polling station in Bendosewu village with his two daughters to cast their ballots. More than 20 black-clad men guarded the politician and his family.
After he voted, local journalists asked him to get closer to Halla, who was sitting on the stage with the other village head candidate. Marhaenis agreed, walking over to Halla, shaking her hands and kissing her cheek.
“I hope my two wives would win. Both have proven their ability to develop the villages they lead and they have several things that they can improve,” he told reporters on voting day.
“The party has been hoping that our members win as many seats as possible in the village head elections,” Marhaenis, who is also the head of the Blitar branch of the PDI-P, added.
From the polling station in Bendosewu village, Marhaenis went to another polling station in Wonorejo village, where his second wife Fendriana was running for a second term. He refused to go to the stage.
“I don’t feel good about it because I don’t have voting rights in this village,” he said, implying that his two wives are not registered at the same residential address and family card.
Marhaenis married 19-year-old Fendriana, who had only just graduated from senior high school, in 2005, a year after he was elected as a councillor for the first time. The then 27-year-old Fendriana ran for the village head position for the first time in 2013. Meanwhile, Halla refused to answer The Jakarta Post’s queries.
“As a local figure, [I] have to make sure that [I am] indeed a local figure. [I] have to be acknowledged by the people,” Marhaenis said when asked about his two wives’ political careers.
Village head elections have increasingly become significant particularly after the introduction of the 2014 Village Law, which aims to expedite rural transformation. Through the village funds program, which has become a flagship policy of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo's administration, each of the 73,670 villages across the country received between Rp 800 million (US$56,200) and Rp 1 billion to finance various development projects. Village heads lead their territory for six-year terms and can be elected for a maximum of three terms, consecutively or not.
Blitar regency’s governance division head Dwi Purwanto said that 518 people, mostly high school graduates, ran as village head candidates in the Tuesday elections. He added that 80 percent of incumbents in the 167 villages ran for another term.
Bambang also emphasized that the prevailing laws could not bar wives of local leaders from running for political office in the same region.
“The positive side is that our village gets ample attention and that makes it easier for us to convey our aspirations [to the regent],” Fendriana said, adding that she “always follows the procedures”.
Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) researcher Wasisto Raharjo Jati said that political dynasties at the local level had emerged for various reasons, including the failure of political parties to groom competent candidates to run for political posts and the high cost politics that means people from the grassroots cannot run alone without the backing of more resourceful entities.
“Power at the local level will be better maintained when it involves intimate relationships,” he told the Post on Thursday.
He added that patrimonialistic politics were more popular at the subnational level, even though more research needs to be done to measure the impact of the village funds program on the rise of political dynasties at the local level.
Sita W. Dewi in Jakarta contributed to the story
