Problems ahead for regional elections
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.