Regional governments bemoan election funds shortage

Nana Rukmana and Rusman, The Jakarta Post/Indramayu/Samarinda

Central government needed to inject more funds into the Indramayu regency because the administration was short of money to run the local elections, the region's regent says.

Irianto M.S. Syaifuddin said his government could only allocate between Rp 5 billion (US$555,555) and Rp 7 billion to finance the direct election. That amount was far below the estimated election budget.

"According to our estimates, we will need to spend Rp 22 billion in order to ensure the election is a success. Given that we can only allocate Rp 5 to 7 Rp billion, we are short of Rp 17 billion. This is a task for the central government -- to help plug the deficit," Irianto said.

The funds needed would cover election materials, voter registrations and the salaries of thousands of electoral workers, he said.

"We must recruit and train thousands of people to be members of election committees down to subdistrict level, and this is costly."

Indramayu is not the only regional government calling for more central government money to help it run the elections.

Association of West Java Regional Governments (APKASI) chairman Dedi Supardi said almost all local administrations in West Java had complained they were short of funds to finance direct elections in their regions. This year, the elections will be held in four regencies and one municipality in West Java.

"All five regional governments have complained that they lacked funds to finance the election. I believe the other 15 regional governments in the province will also have similar problems (in the future)" Dedi said.

He said each regional government needed some Rp 20 billion to hold the direct elections.

Meanwhile, the direct elections in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, could be postponed because of a prolonged dispute between legislative and executive branches of local government.

The direct election is scheduled to take place in May this year.

The conflict was sparked recently following the provincial government's appointment of Awang Dharma Bhakti as the acting regent of Kutai Kartanegara to replace Regent Syaukani.

The regental councillors, backed by thousands of Syaukani supporters, rejected Awang's appointment, which led to a crisis of government in the regency.

"If the conflict is not resolved by May, then we will have to delay the direct election," Ischak Iskandar, the chairman of Kutai Kartanegara's General Elections Commission, said.