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Analysis: Regional elections determine power balance at national level
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Get ready: An election official moves a ballot box on Feb. 28, 2020, from the Ciamis Regional Elections (Pilkada) logistics warehouse in Ciamis regency, West Java. (Antara/Adeng Bustomi)
T
hey say all politics are local, but the elections for the heads of local governments this coming November will still determine the balance of power between the country’s three big political parties. Their interplay, either through competition or collaboration, or a combination of the two, will shape the national political landscape and the direction Indonesia takes.
This will be the last political battle in this election year after the presidential and legislative elections in February. Many parties are fielding their candidates for the Nov.27 elections for provincial governors, regency chiefs and city mayors, but the real battle pits the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party and the Gerindra Party, respectively the first, second and third largest parties in the country.
It is also turning into a personal battle between those controlling the parties, most particularly between Megawati Soekarnoputri, matron of the PDI-P and Indonesia’s president in 2001-2004, and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo who controls Golkar. Caught in the middle, while also the beneficiary of whatever may transpire from their battle, is Prabowo Subianto, founding chair of Gerindra who will be inaugurated as president on Oct. 20.
Winning these regional elections gives them additional leverage which they will need in Indonesia’s transactional politics.
Prabowo’s big tent coalition government includes Golkar, through which Jokowi is expected to exercise some influence, as well as through the incoming vice president Gibran Rakabuming Raka, his 36-year-old son.
Megawati has refused the offer to join, but the PDI-P will use its lead position in the House of Representatives to exert some influence over the way Prabowo governs. The ruling coalition will include seven of the eight parties in the House which together control 86 percent of the seats, raising doubts about the effectiveness of the PDI-P playing the role of the sole opposition party.
Megawati has been locked in a fierce personal battle with Jokowi and the score so far is one to one. The PDI-P won the legislative elections, but Megawati’s chosen presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo lost the presidential bid to Prabowo, who won with a critical endorsement from Jokowi.
