The Jakarta Post
Millions of voters in 272 provinces, regencies and cities will not be able to elect their respective regional leaders in 2022 and 2023 after the House of Representatives rejected a proposal to change the Regional Elections Law. The law stipulates that all regional elections nationwide are to be simultaneously with national elections in 2024. As a consequence, the government will elect hundreds of acting leaders to fill seats left empty by regional leaders whose terms expire before 2024, raising concerns over abuse of power and conflicts of interests. The House officially dropped on Tuesday a proposal to revise the law by ordering some regional elections to be held in 2022 and 2023 – rather than in 2024 -- and further agreed to remove the revision bill from this year’s legislative priority list. The decision comes after the government said last month that it did no...