The Dec. 9 elections will be for 270 regional positions: nine governors, 224 regents and 37 mayors. They will be held under strict health protocols laid out in a KPU regulation approved by the House on Monday. The regions holding elections include Surabaya and 18 other cities and regencies in East Java, one of the provinces hit hardest by COVID-19.

Association of Elections and Democracy (Perludem) executive director Titi Anggraini said election stakeholders – the KPU and the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) – should strongly encourage voters to participate in the upcoming elections.

She warned that low voter turnout would harm the reputation of the KPU and those who had insisted on holding the elections in December: the government and the House.

“It will affect the public’s trust in elected local governments [if they are] established by minimal public support. The reputation of the central government and the KPU will therefore be at stake because people will see that they insisted on holding the elections under suboptimal conditions," she said.

Read also: So much work, so little time: KPU under pressure over regional polls

The KPU was put under pressure to establish special measures after the House and government decided in late May that this year’s regional elections would be held on Dec. 9, even though the epidemic showed no sign of abating. The elections were pushed back by about three months from their initial date of Sept. 23, as mandated by a regulation in lieu of law issued by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in May.

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