September 24, 2024
JAKARTA – The race for the biggest single-day local elections officially began across the country this week, with hundreds of candidates ready to compete for regional head posts.
Candidates for regional head elections drew their unique ballot numbers at their respective General Elections Commission (KPU) offices on Monday, a day after the poll agency announced the names that will appear on the ballots, marking the start of the November race.
The Nov. 27 regional elections will be the first time Indonesians vote for their governors, mayors and regents simultaneously across 37 provinces, 415 regencies and 93 cities – more than at any other time in the nation’s history.
The two-month campaign season is set to kick off on Wednesday, though many candidates have already started their unofficial campaigns since registering their bids with the election agency earlier this month.
The local elections come on the heels of the February simultaneous presidential and legislative elections, the former of which was won by Prabowo Subianto and running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, whose winning alliance and its extended members now seek to win several battleground provinces, such as Jakarta.
The pro-Prabowo Onward Indonesia Coalition (KIM) and its extended members will see their candidate for Jakarta governor, Ridwan Kamil, go up against Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, who is running on the ticket of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). The third candidate in Jakarta is former police general Dharma Pongrekun, who is running as an independent.
The latest public opinion poll showed that Ridwan, a popular former West Java governor who is running with Suswono of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), is the frontrunner for Jakarta governor, which is widely seen as a springboard to the presidency.
Jakarta will remain the country’s economic epicenter even though it will soon lose its status as Indonesia’s capital.
In other strategic provinces like Central Java, North Sumatra and Banten, voters are also seeing KIM-backed candidates go up against single-party tickets or smaller alliances, while candidates in other regions seek to court the Muslim population, such as in East Java, where three women are competing for the gubernatorial post.
Civil servant neutrality
Partisanship among government workers has been singled out as a potential election violation this year.
“Impartiality of civil servants was the third largest [type of] violation in past regional elections, so this has become a concern for the Elections Supervisory Agency [Bawaslu],” Bawaslu member Lolly Suhenty said on Sunday, as quoted by Kompas.
Lolly said that her office would process every allegation of partisanship among civil servants and that the Bawaslu will also hand over its findings to the National Civil Service Agency (BKN).
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Iqbal Kholidin of election watchdog the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) told The Jakarta Post on Monday that public concerns surrounding impartiality among civil servants had mounted following the February presidential election, which was marred with allegations of partisanship of outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, whose son is vice president-elect Gibran.
The Themis Indonesia law firm released on Saturday a report identifying ten provinces at high risk of electoral fraud because of high numbers of government workers. They were West Java, Central Java, East Java, Banten, Jakarta, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Lampung, Riau and South Sulawesi.
Uncontested races
At least 34 regencies and one province will see a single candidate pair run uncontested for regional head.
Elections expert Titi Anggraini said one of the biggest factors contributing to uncontested elections was the fact that KIM insisted on extending its winning partnership from the February presidential election to November’s local elections.
“This was partly motivated by their desire to strengthen the ties between the central government and regional administrations that will support and help accelerate the implementation of new government policies at the provincial, city or regental levels,” Titi said.
Another contributing factor is the fact that many political parties have flocked to the KIM alliance because they failed to prepare their own potential candidates for the November elections.
The KPU extended the registration period to encourage more candidates to register for the race, but this has not solved the problem.