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'Good outweighs bad' in direct regional elections
Nearly 15 years after the first direct regional elections were held in Indonesia, the government and the country’s biggest political parties have signaled their intention to abolish direct public participation in electing local leaders, citing high costs that could lead to increased corruption
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span>Nearly 15 years after the first direct regional elections were held in Indonesia, the government and the country’s biggest political parties have signaled their intention to abolish direct public participation in electing local leaders, citing high costs that could lead to increased corruption.
But observers and experts have said that direct regional elections, though flawed, are a vital part of Indonesia’s post-Soeharto democracy — resulting, among other things, in Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s presidency — and that steps could be taken to improve the process without scrapping it altogether.
Home Minister Tito Karnavian first floated the idea earlier this month, on the sidelines of a meeting with House of Representatives Commission II overseeing home affairs, saying the high costs of competing in regional elections could prompt elected leaders to turn to graft to recoup their outlay. He said a return to the previous system, in which governors, regents and mayors were chosen by the respective Regional Legislative Councils (DPRDs), could be more beneficial.
Tito’s statement was met with a steady stream of support from parties within the government coalition, with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) in particular expressing its strong endorsement and saying that the electoral process “should be evaluated”.
Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD) executive director Robert Endi Jaweng agreed that regional elections should be evaluated and that such an evaluation should take place in good faith.
“[Tito] says there will be an evaluation, but why does it seem that the matter is already decided?” Robert told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. “Direct regional elections are an integral part of the decentralization process put in place since the start of the Reform Era.”
Robert said it was “absurd” for party elites to complain about the high cost of running in direct elections when it was the parties themselves that made it so expensive. “The main thing that makes direct elections cost so much is the ‘political dowry’ parties require from those who want to be nominated as candidates,” he said. “Without that, the cost would be significantly lower.”
Robert added that before direct regional elections were first held in 2005, there were rarely any innovative regional heads.
“After direct regional elections were implemented, we can see the results in innovative and clean leaders, such as Jokowi, Risma [Tri Rismaharini] in Surabaya and Nurdin Abdullah in South Sulawesi,” he said. “Before that, regional heads were held hostage by the DPRD.”
Robert pointed out that the last time the House tried to abolish direct regional elections at the tail end of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s second term in 2014, they were met with widespread public outcry and the resulting law was overturned by two regulations in lieu of law (Perppu) issued by Yudhoyono shortly after.
“The point of regional autonomy was to create a system of government that originates from the people, and direct regional elections are the instrument to achieve that,” he said.
Titi Anggraini, the director of election watchdog Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), agreed with Robert, saying that reverting back to indirect regional elections would only worsen the problems of regional elections.
“It’s true that direct regional elections have a number of flaws, such as the high cost of becoming a candidate, the phenomenon of single-candidate races and the fact that former graft convicts still often win elections,” she told the Post. “But in indirect elections, these problems would still exist and become worse, since political parties would still be able to demand ‘political dowries’ from would-be regional heads and would still be free to pick former graft convicts.”
Polls on the matter suggest that the public strongly supports direct regional elections — a 2014 survey by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) found that 84.1 percent of respondents preferred direct elections to indirect ones. Exit polls conducted by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) in six major provinces shortly after the simultaneous 2018 election day showed that more than 95 percent of voters in West Java, Central Java, East Java, North Sumatra, West Kalimantan and South Sulawesi felt that the election process was honest and just.
Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researcher Noory Okthariza said the notion of abolishing direct regional elections was one of a number of policies that seemed to stem from an agreement between the leadership of the country’s largest parties, namely the PDI-P and the Gerindra Party.
“It seems like there is a consensus among the big parties, looking back on the experience of the 2019 general elections, that direct elections are disadvantageous to political elites,” he told the Post. “The controversial Corruption Eradication Commission [KPK] Law revision, the planned constitutional amendment and now the [idea to abolish] direct regional elections are all part of the same package.”
