Mending Banten's Fractures: Development Politics Must Not Play Favourites

Banten is often called Indonesia’s ‘international gateway’ due to Soekarno-Hatta Airport and Merak Port. Yet, dissecting the province’s interior reveals a painful contradiction. On one side, we see a forest of factories and the glitter of satellite cities in Greater Tangerang; on the other, we see broken roads and portraits of extreme poverty in the remote areas of Lebak and Pandeglang. The greatest political challenge facing Banten today is structured inequality.

‘North-Centric’ Politics

So far, political and economic policy in Banten has appeared heavily biased towards the northern region. Massive investment flows into Cilegon with its steel industry, or to Tangerang with its services and property sectors. This is logical from a business perspective, but risky politically and socially. When the development pie is only enjoyed by communities close to Jakarta, the people of South Banten will continue to feel neglected. This feeling of being ‘second-class citizens’ is often exploited by political actors to trigger regional partition issues (such as the discourse of a Greater Tangerang Province or Cilangkahan Regency) as a form of protest against the unequal distribution of welfare.

Every time regional elections approach, candidates flock to the south with sweet promises of infrastructure improvements. However, development in Banten is often hampered by a bureaucratic mentality still trapped in the practice of ‘projectism’. The construction of roads, schools, and community health centres in remote areas is frequently of low quality because budgets are ‘cut’ midway. Future politics in Banten requires a leader brave enough to conduct strict audits and ensure that every rupiah of the regional budget truly reaches the asphalt of village roads in Pandeglang, rather than evaporating in the drawers of agency offices. Equitable development in Banten is not about building a mall in Lebak, but about ensuring that farmers there have access to decent roads to sell their produce without being strangled by transport costs.

Towards Solution-Based Politics

Banten’s society is becoming increasingly astute. They are growing weary of identity politics or mere displays of closeness to religious figures and local strongmen. What is needed now is a Technocratic Politics capable of answering: How to integrate the industrial sector in the north with the agricultural and tourism potential in the south? How to create jobs for thousands of vocational school graduates in Banten so they are not merely spectators in their own land? How can bureaucratic digitalisation cut the corruption loopholes that have been the main obstacle to the province’s progress? Banten’s politics must shift from a mere scramble for seats of power to an arena of competing ideas to unite this economic dualism. Banten will never be truly strong if only one leg (the North) steps forward, while the other leg (the South) remains shackled by underdevelopment. Banten’s next leader bears a heavy historical task: to tear down the wall of inequality and prove that prosperity is the right of all citizens, from the coast of Sawarna to the outskirts of Tangerang.