Problems ahead for regional elections

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Provincial election commissions (KPUD) are facing a number of problems, including a lack of clear guidelines, in organizing the country's first direct elections for local government chief executives.

Hasyim Azhari, an official with the East Java KPUD, said that some regencies and municipalities in the province only had single candidates standing in the elections -- something that ran contrary to the Local Government Law (No. 32 of 2004).

"Law No. 32/2004, as well as the electoral regulations, do not allow single candidates to run in the elections. But the reality in the field shows that some political parties have missed the deadlines for registering their candidates," Hasyim told reporters on Wednesday after a hearing with Susilo, who heads the Ministry of Home Affairs's local election desk.

Various regions in the country will hold elections in June to select their local chief executives, including governors, regents and mayors, to replace the current 226 officeholders whose terms will end soon. These will be the first ever direct elections for local leaders and represent an important part of the democratization process in the country.

Hasyim also said that there was no clear mechanism on how the regions should designate holidays in their respective areas on election day.

"The legislation says that election day should be declared a holiday by the central government. But there are no mechanisms as to how we should handle holiday proposals," he said, pointing out that if all 226 regions were to make proposals to the President, this would be impractical and time-consuming.

Hasyim also complained over the lack of other guidelines for KPUD officials in organizing the elections, including campaign guidelines, the procurement of ballot boxes and ballot papers, and the registration of voters, for which the government has actually set a March-16 deadline for the KPUD.

In East Java alone, there were six regencies and four municipalities that had set election schedules, despite the lack of funding and executory regulations.

Another problem was the uncertainty as regards how much money the central government would allocate to the regions for the holding of the elections.

While the government has proposed Rp 1.29 trillion (about US$135.87 million) budget, the House of Representatives has yet to approve the allocation. Any further delay in disbursing the funds could disrupt the electoral process in the regions, analysts have warned.