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View all search resultsAnalysis: Prabowo targets electoral reforms to consolidate power
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A local poll administrator (KPPS) shows a ballot to witnesses on Dec. 5, 2024, during the vote tabulation of the revote for the Central Sulawesi gubernatorial election in Palu. (Antara/Basri Marzuki)
T
he direct election mechanism as a way of choosing political leaders could become a thing of the past in Indonesia, starting with the election of the heads of regional administrations, but it could go all the way up to the election of the head of state.
The greatest beneficiary of this indirect system is the President, at least going by the history of how Soeharto had ruled Indonesia for over three decades. A return to the old system would help incumbent President Prabowo Subianto consolidate power and rule longer than the maximum of two five-year cycles currently allowed by the constitution.
The combination of the Functional Groups (Golkar) and Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) parties, the two largest parties in Prabowo's coalition government, should be enough to ensure changes in the way local elections will be run in 2029. The coalition controls over 80 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives.
The issue was broached during Golkar's 61st anniversary in Jakarta on Dec. 5 when Prabowo, chair and founder of Gerindra, in a speech, welcomed Golkar's proposal to change the regional electoral system, citing the huge costs of the direct mechanism, estimated at Rp 37 trillion (US$2.2 billion) for the regional elections last year.
Golkar chair Bahlil Lahadalia said his party has helped draft the bill on the new law governing the regional electoral system, and it is now ready to be presented to the House for deliberation.
With Prabowo's ruling coalition controlling more than 80 percent of the 580 seats in the House, the bill will likely be given a swift passage, never mind what the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), the lone opposition, think.
This means that in 2029, all the heads of the regional governments, at provincial, regency and city levels, would be elected by the local legislative councils and no longer by the people as has been the practice in post-Soeharto Indonesia since the turn of the millennium.
