The government has declared Dec. 9, the voting day in the upcoming simultaneous regional election, a national holiday.

The decision is stipulated in Presidential Decree No. 22/2020, signed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo last Friday.

The national holiday is hoped to provide “the widest possible opportunity for citizens to exercise their voting right”, says the decree.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) said it would coordinate with relevant institutions, including the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), the Indonesian Military, the National Police and the COVID-19 task force, to enforce health protocol during the elections.

“We hope voters will not hesitate to come to polling stations, because we follow health protocols for the management of all voting logistics used at the stations,” said KPU official Dewa Kade Wiarsa Raka Sandi, as quoted from a statement published on the Cabinet Secretariat website.

The 2020 regional elections include 270 elections conducted on the same day, with more than 100 million voters in 309 regencies and cities to be involved.

The executive director of election watchdog the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), Titi Anggraini, said declaring the simultaneous regional elections day a national holiday had been common practice since 2015.

Referring to the prevailing law on regional elections, a regional voting day must be held on a holiday or an off-work day.

“There is a good purpose, given that voters who work in nonelection areas, for example residents of South Tangerang [Banten] and Depok [West Java] working in Jakarta, will lose their voting rights due to their irreversible work schedule,” Titi told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Titi expressed appreciation for the fact that the polling day was set to fall in the middle of the week instead of on a long weekend or a day prior, as that had often prompted people to go on a vacation.

“However, it is still necessary for the central government, regional administrations, election organizers and other parties with authority to synchronize policies during the national holiday to avoid adverse outcomes,” she added.

The government and House of Representatives Commission II, which oversees home affairs, have decided to go ahead with the regional elections on Dec. 9 despite recommendations from experts, epidemiologists and various entities, including the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and prominent Muslim groups, to delay the elections over COVID-19 concerns.

The House, instead, has asked the KPU to revise a KPU regulation to specifically include provisions prohibiting mass gatherings and to promote online campaigns instead.

Under the new regulation, candidates may host face-to-face rallies indoors only when online campaigning is impossible, and that the events must follow strict health protocols and have no more than 50 attendees.

Bawaslu has recorded 2,126 health protocol violations occurring during face-to-face regional election campaigns which began on Sept. 26.

“In the nearly two months of the election campaigns, the face-to-face campaign method was the most popular, reaching 91,640 activities,” the agency said, based on data as of Nov. 24.

In response to the violations, Bawaslu has issued warning letters and shut down campaign activities in violation of health rules, occasionally in collaboration with local public order agencies (Satpol PP) and the police.

At least 21 central and local Bawaslu offices previously recommended that pairs of candidates and their winning teams avoid face-to-face campaigns.

According to Bawaslu, insufficient internet networks and limited devices owned by voters had been the constraints that made online campaigns the least popular activity for candidate pairs.