INDONESIA LOOKING FOR BEST OPTIONS FOR REGIONAL HEAD ELECTIONS by Fardah

   Jakarta, Sept 18, 2014 (Antara) - A controversy over a Bill being discussed in Parliament suggesting indirect elections of governors, district heads and mayors, is raging in Indonesia.

        The country has been conducting direct elections of president, legislators, and regional heads since 2004. During 1999-2004, the nation carried out indirect elections of regional heads through the Regional Legislative Elections (DPRD).

        Members of the country's political parties are at present divided between those who support reverting to the old system of indirect elections by DPRD and those who want to maintain direct regional head elections (Pilkada).

          The Bill is mainly supported by the Red-and-White Coalition, which comprises among other parties, of the Great Indonesian Movement (Gerindra), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the United Development Party (PPP), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and Golkar, which secured a majority in the legislative body.

         The parties insisting on maintaining the current direct election system include the ruling Democratic Party and the Gotong Royong Coalition led by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and joined among other things by the National Democrat (Nasdem), the Nation Awakening Party (PKB), and the People's Conscience Party (Hanura).

         The debate over the regional head election system is crucial because some 214 regions comprising provinces, districts and cities in Indonesia, are scheduled to hold local elections in 2015.

         The government would accept any decision made by Parliament, Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi said recently and added that pros and cons over the Bill were normal in a democratic country.

          Earlier, Chairman of the General Elections Commission (KPU) Husni Kamil Manik revealed that the commission was considering an idea of simultaneously organizing local elections in October 2015.

         The government is currently drafting a new regulation on cost-effective elections of regional heads, which have so far been funded through the State Budget.

          The current government played an important role in deciding whether the Bill on local elections will follow the one-man-one-vote system or return to the indirect election system, some experts said.

          President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on September 14 made his stance clear that he wanted the best option for the people. "Hopefully this country and nation will decide on a system which is the most appropriate for the sake of the people," Yudhoyono said.

           Each party should consider the spirit of reforms as well as the impact of a system they would choose while discussing the Bill, he stated.

         Earlier, the home affairs ministry hinted that the government preferred direct elections, but with some improvement in the implementation to prevent unnecessary cost and establishment of a political dynasty.

         Based on an evaluation on the implementation of direct regional head elections over the past 10 years, the system has had a negative impact because it could trigger money politics and violence, presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha told the press recently.

         If the Parliament decided on maintaining the direct election system, it should make improvements to prevent the negative impacts from recurring, he added.

         President Yudhoyono's Democrat Party has openly declared support for the continuation of the direct system of election of regional heads.

         "However, the party has a 10-point requirement (with regard to its implementation). If all of the notes are included in the Bill, the Democrat Party will support the direct system of regional head elections," the party's associate chairman Syarief Hasan said at a press conference at the party headquarters in Jakarta, on September 18, 2014.

          The ten requirements include a public examination into the integrity and competence of regional head candidates, cost efficiency, campaign rules and limitation of outdoor rallies apart from campaign fund accountability, a ban on using a political party as a vehicle for rent or paying parties to be nominated as their candidates and slander and black campaigning.

           Other requirements include a ban on involving government officials in the election, discharging officials after elections, referring responsibility for settlement of election disputes and prevention of violence against candidates.

           Meanwhile, the National Resilience Institute (Lemhannas) has suggested that only governors should be elected by regional legislators, whereas district heads and mayors should continue to be directly elected by the public.

            Based on a study carried out by Lemhannas in 2007, the government and the House of Representatives should agree on a gubernatorial election through DPRD and a direct election for district heads and mayors, Lemhannas Governor Budi Susilo Soepandji stated in Jakarta recently.

            "We have discussed this issue since 2005. In 2007, we conveyed a suggestion in a seminar and in an academic paper that democracy carried out in regional head elections by using the 'one-man-one-vote system' had triggered many clashes during that period," he said when speaking before recently elected legislators for the parliamentarian tenure 2014-2019, at Lemhannas.

             Governors should be elected by lawmakers in DPRD because governors are government's apparatuses or installed by the president, while district heads and mayors are elected by the public, Lemhannas recommended.

            Bambang Widjojanto, deputy chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), however, rejected the idea of giving regional legislators the authority to elect regional heads.

            Such an indirect regional head election could be considered a corruption of democracy, Widjojanto said recently.

            The country's Constitution has guaranteed direct elections of regional heads and the public are the main subjects in the elections, he said.

             Widjojanto, founder of the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), believed that the proposal on indirect elections had unconstitutionally illegitimatized democracy for vested interests and power.

           The Parliament is expected to take a decision on the Bill on September 25, before the inauguration of new DPR members on October 1 and the new president on October 20 this year. ***1***
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(INE)