Part of an ongoing article series on Indonesia’s regional elections 2024.
Introduction
The high cost of local elections prompted President Prabowo Subianto to revive the discourse on indirect local elections. In his speech at the Golkar Party’s anniversary, Prabowo proposed that local parliaments should elect regional heads instead of being directly elected by voters.
Political party leaders, political elites and members of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) followed suit by welcoming the discourse on regional head elections by the local parliaments.
Despite the costly nature of organizing direct local elections, the system remains the best option for Indonesian voters seeking to ensure subnational leadership circulation.
The high cost associated with local elections is insufficient to justify switching from a direct to an indirect election system. Instead, the state and political parties should invest more to improve the quality of the organizing and outcomes of direct elections.
The Costs of Regional Elections
Cynicism regarding the recently concluded local elections is justified for an array of reasons. The president’s and national-level political forces’ interference, misuse of state resources, state apparatuses’ intervention, the poor performance of election management and supervisory bodies, low turnout rates, and increasing dynastic politics prevalence are some valid reasons to be dissatisfied with this year’s local elections.
Another reason is the costly nature associated with organizing local elections. This is not merely related to legitimate expenses, which include – but are not limited to – printing ballots, paying honorariums to polling station officials and campaign-related expenses.
The government, for example, allocated Rp37.4 trillion (approximately US$2.335 billion) to organize the 2024 Simultaneous Regional Head Elections (Pemilihan Kepala Daerah Serentak – Pilkada).
In addition to campaign expenses, candidates must also pay witness fees at polling stations, conduct electoral surveys and file disputes over election results to the Constitutional Court (MK). This last includes the cost of paying lawyers and bringing witnesses to Jakarta to testify before the MK.
Pilkada become considerably more expensive when “stealth expenses” are factored into the five-yearly ritual.
Political “dowries” (mahar politik) to secure party endorsements is one such example of, as is the money required to engage in vote buying (i.e., money politics).
It was found that a mayoral or regent candidate would need to spend Rp20-30 billion (approximately US$1.25 million to 1.87 million). A gubernatorial candidate could spend up to Rp100 billion (approximately US$6,244 million) to compete in a regional election.
The various costs mentioned so far have only addressed material costs. There are also non-material costs, such as the potential for bloody conflicts during the election period. A supporter of one candidate in Sampang (East Java), for example, died after being seriously injured in a mob attack due to a dispute between supporters of different candidates.
Candidates who win elections often have to return their “investment” through illegal means, ranging from corruption and extortion to granting licenses that abuse their authority as powerholders. The Corruption Eradication Commission recorded that 167 regional heads were implicated in corruption cases between 2004 and 2024.
The complexity and high cost of regional elections become more problematic when the positive impacts of decentralization on regional economic development are still questionable.
Although political factors are not the only causes that hinder regional economic development, local capture of public resources is one of the key mechanisms that impede the achievement of this goal. Local capture is facilitated, among others, through direct regional elections.
Prabowo’s Premature Response
The proposal to change the direct election system to an indirect one is not new.
The discourse of electing regional heads by local parliaments almost materialized in 2014 when the House of Representatives passed Law No. 24/2014 on Pilkada.
Then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (SBY) administration initiated the law at the end of his second term. The high cost of organizing local elections and rampant money politics were cited as the primary reasons why SBY’s administration proposed to change the local election system.
However, public pressure at that time forced SBY – who was very concerned about his image as a democrat – to issue a Government Regulation in lieu of Law (Peraturan Pemerintah Pengganti Undang-Undang)that annulled the article on indirect local elections and restored the direct Pilkada system.
Past proposals to change the local election system from direct to indirect always overlook the mother of all problems in today’s Indonesian democracy: Political parties that are disconnected from society and are not democratic and transparent in their decision-making processes.
Political parties often nominate candidates in local elections that are not aligned with the wishes and interests of the voters. They often select candidates based on popularity, electability and financial strength (in the Indonesian language, colloquially known as the tiga “tas”: popularitas, elektabilitas, isi tas).
Furthermore, the previous high candidacy threshold only benefited candidates who could buy endorsements from political parties. The implication is that, in many regions, there was only one pair of candidates competing against an empty ballot box.
Finally, individuals with a background in dynasty politics dominate political party structures at the subnational level and can easily nominate their family members in Pilkada. Consequently, regeneration within political parties has stagnated, and community members who are capable and genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of the local community only have a slim chance of being nominated through political parties.
Candidacy as an independent also does not fully overcome these problems. The requirements for independent candidates in local elections are extremely demanding. Candidates must gather validated support from 6.5-10% of the total number of voters (depending on the number of voters in the region). These voters must be spread across more than 50% of the districts/cities or subdistricts in that subnational unit.
The stringent candidacy requirements have discouraged candidates who wish to run as non-political party candidates.
Therefore, it is unsurprising that political costs in subnational elections can reach billions of rupiah. Candidates who seek to compete in local elections must spend a considerable amount of money since the early stage of their candidacy. Because these candidates are not well-rooted in the community, they must spend more to market themselves. Finally, because they are not confident that voters will vote for them, many rely on vote buying to secure the voters’ support.
The Costs of Eliminating Direct Local Elections
When Indonesia adopted a direct regional election system in 2004, the main reason was rampant money politics in local parliaments during local elections. It was no secret at the time that regional head candidates could buy the votes of political party representatives in local parliaments. The adoption of direct elections initially aimed to eliminate this practice and give voters the power to choose their local leaders.
Reversing this change will bring back a similar corrupt practice without addressing the root of the problems in Indonesia’s contemporary setting.
Furthermore, without direct elections, it is inconceivable that promising regional heads would emerge and become influential actors in the national political landscape.
Direct elections have become one of the channels to produce potential candidates for national leadership. In the 2024 presidential election, two of the three presidential candidates – Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo – were former governors elected through direct elections.
One should also remember that president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo launched his political career as the mayor of Surakarta and, subsequently, the governor of Jakarta, elected through direct local elections.
Local elections have also produced other national-caliber leaders such as Tri Rismaharini (former Minister of Social Affairs), Abdullah Azwar Anas (former Minister of Administrative Reform and Bureaucratic Reform), and Bima Arya Sugiarto (current Deputy Minister of Home Affairs).
Direct local elections have also incentivized regional heads to experiment with local public policies urgently needed by the people, which could then be adopted at the national level.
Besides, the adoption of the universal healthcare policy at the national level started with healthcare policies introduced at the subnational level by politicians who sought to win the electorate’s support. It was a success story of how direct local elections can lead to innovative and progressive social welfare programs.
Most importantly, direct local elections provide an avenue for the citizens to foster democratic culture and values. If bloody horizontal conflicts occurred frequently in the early days of direct regional elections, the quantity and scale of post-election violence today have dropped significantly.
This decline indicates that competing political elites and their supporters prefer to resolve post-election disputes through legitimate as well as democratic channels. Besides, it shows that they have also refrained from violent means of conflict resolution, which suggests that the society continues to evolve by adopting democratic values.
Conclusion
Although imperfect and costly, the direct election system is still the best option for voters to force regional heads to be more responsive to public interests and replace regional heads with poor performance.
This system also offers the best opportunity for the voters to stop dynastic politics. Therefore, abolishing the direct local election system is not the appropriate response to address the cost issues of organizing this democratic process.
Voters’ and political elites’ trust in the elections management body and the direct election process can be improved by promoting transparency in all aspects as well as stages of direct election organization.
One strategy for achieving this goal is to use digital technologies in the direct election process. The use of digital technologies can also help lower the cost of conducting direct elections.
The various stealth costs associated with direct elections can also be minimized by forcing political parties to become more transparent and democratic in their candidate nomination processes.
Political parties should be forced to nominate party cadres who have proven their active membership and role in a political party and society over a period of time. The nomination process by political parties should also start from the grassroots level, where party nominations are done through a multitiered convention process.
If the high cost of local elections is being used to justify the abolition of the direct election system, the same argument could be used to abolish legislative and presidential elections in the future. Should this happen, it will be the final nail in the coffin of Indonesian democracy.
