KPPOD Urges Full Funding of Regional Elections from National Budget

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Analyst from the Committee for Monitoring Regional Autonomy Implementation (KPPOD) Eduardo Edwin Ramba is urging that the operational implementation of regional head elections (pilkada) be fully funded by the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN). “We are first pushing for the operational aspects of the elections to be entirely funded by the APBN alone,” said Eduardo during a virtual discussion titled ‘Countering the Tide of Centralisation: Challenging the Election Law from the Perspective of Regional Autonomy’, on Thursday (7/5/2026). Eduardo believes that one of the most complex issues in Indonesia’s electoral process is the use of the Regional Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBD) to finance general elections. As a result, election budgets in the APBD are difficult to reallocate to other areas if efficiencies arise. “During the COVID-19 policy in 2020, the central government directed refocusing and reallocation of budgets for three programmes: social safety nets, funding for addressing health impacts, and addressing economic impacts,” stated Eduardo. According to him, this creates a kind of opportunity cost because there are other regional needs that could be addressed with the APBD. “So when we use the budget for Pilkada, other programmes that are actually more beneficial end up not being funded,” explained Eduardo. This is because Special Allocation Funds (DAK) can be used to finance non-physical programmes. “For example, we could use a scheme for special allocation funds for local democracy, which is also very possible under the Regional Financial Harmonisation Law (HKPD), where if we prioritise democracy, we can use this as justification to push for special allocation funds for local democracy to finance agendas related to political education, participation, and voter literacy itself,” said Eduardo.